The Cord (A Thranduil fan-fic) - Book 1 of Mirkwood Royals
by magicbunni
Summary: When a troop of Northern Rangers arrive at the Great Gates of Mirkwood they reinforce what Thranduil, the Elfking, already suspects: Destroying the Dark Enemy and The One Ring did not wipe all Sauron's strife from Middle Earth. Rather, the vacuum has created a renaissance of darkness.
1. The Cord - Part 1

**Title**: The Cord

**Status**: Complete

**Words**: 184 pages (in 2 parts)

**Characters**: **Thranduil Oropherion; Legolas Thranduilion; Elrond; Original Characters**.

**Warnings**: None.

This Mystery is a complete standalone story.

**Summary**: This is a complete fan-fiction set in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe. When a troop of Northern Rangers arrive at the Great Gates of Mirkwood they reinforce what the Elfking there already suspects: Destroying the Dark Enemy and The One Ring did not wipe all Sauron's strife from Middle Earth. Rather, the vacuum has created a renaissance of darkness. Other powers afoot in the land are locked in competition for mastery over the Children of Iluvatar (Elves and Men), and a series of events on the Forest River, Long Lake, and Erebor slowly reveal that the Kingdom is falling under the shadow of a new threat. The Northern Rangers have also come to warn of a strange attack. In fact, their leader remains ensnared in the sway of dark forces and cannot speak of the event. Can the elves of Mirkwood and their great King, along with a handful of Northern Rangers and a rising city of Men, untangle the mystery of the cord?

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy! Please leave feedback for magicbunni on FFN, A3O, tumblr, or deviantArt!

~ Magicbunni (In case it's easier, The Cord is also available for download on Archive Of Our Own (A3O). Search for magicbunni and The Cord.)

**THE CORD**

Magicbunni ( u/3079928/magicbunni )

It was muggy and unseasonably rainy on the day Lusis left the common woodlands for a hole in the ground. Not that it was a very untidy or unpleasant hole. Or a very deep one. Just that she hadn't expected _any_ race of elf to live _underground_.

Ever.

It didn't match with anything in the stories she'd learned as a young girl. It was alarming from the point of view she held about things that came from the deep. Underground was a dangerous space. All manner of her least-favourite beings lived there: Goblins, Orcs, trolls, and creatures that defied naming whose only purpose, as far as she could tell, was to cause mayhem and die on the end of her sword. So she didn't yet know how she felt about these elves who didn't live in trees. Not that she knew much about elves in particular. As a rule, they kept to their own, and it was surprising to her that she'd been permitted to cross the river onto this land at all. She'd heard of forest strongholds where all passage was forbidden, and had assumed all elf lands worked in this way.

But at least their underground was rumoured to be shallow, well lit, and, best of all, _dry_.

She'd been aware of an 'escort' since she'd crossed the river, but they hadn't shown themselves, or interfered until she came within sight of, and then passed through, the markers for whatever elf holding was hereabouts. She didn't know them. Lusis didn't trouble with elves, or most any other being she deemed could take care of itself.

She was mere feet into the limits, proper, before she found herself faced with a tall man dressed in immaculate green leather, and with his long dark hair tied up at the crown of his head. She startled because she hadn't seen him coming, and because he was so clean and fair. Even soaked to the skin, he looked tidy as a bureaucrat. No surprise that when he laid the flat of his hand over the side of the blade she'd drawn she could see there wasn't even dirt under his fingernails.

He said, "Hello on this inclement day."

He had a pretty voice and an accent.

Lusis, who was, in comparison, filthy, snaggly-haired, plastered with mud and in a rotten humour, spat out some of the muck in her mouth and glanced over her shoulder to the four equally disheveled men behind her.

One of the youngest of these, Aric, beamed at her, "Maybe you should hug him?" he invited. Then he wiped away a clod of syrupy muck from his stubble and tossed it down in the rain. It made a splat. His grin broadened. Her other companions rumbled with amusement.

_Rangers_.

She pulled a face and returned her gaze to the clean elf. Had to be an elf. His ears were pointed and he was so fresh and pleasant – like a man out on a sunny beach. He hadn't moved an inch. His generally affable expression was as unchanged as statuary.

Creepy.

She steeled herself and lowered her sword, careful of his hand on the bare blade. "That's a good way to cut yourself." She said, though the elf's pale hand was already moving away.

Aric marveled from closer behind her. "_Is_ there a good way?"

"Maybe she meant that's a _sure_ way. That's a _sure_ way for him to cut himself." Growled Redd. He was obelisk-like, one of the more experienced men in her band, and an _avid_ reader. Which made him both incredibly useful in battle, and almost _unforgivably_ conversational. Redd was one of the only men she knew who got chatty in pitched battle, though that may have been because battle and reading made him relax about equally.

Dutifully, Lusis exhaled and told the elf, "That's a _sure_ way to cut yourself."

The elf had hardly moved a feather. "What is, lady?"

Redd stepped in smoothly, "Lusis, that is the wrong tense."

She could swear that the dark-haired elf looked just a shade amused. But he let her off the hook with a question that, at least, had something to do with the matter around her. "These are not the lands of Men. Why have you strayed this way?"

Evidently, it was a form of purgatory. She inhaled. "I need to speak to the elves, hereabouts."

The dark-haired newcomer's chin dropped a fraction, "And so you are."

"Preferably, I'd like to do it while dry." She said tightly.

Aric snickered, "Come all this way to get out of the rain. Surely you've got enough hospitality in you for that, elf? To show a few Rangers to shelter."

This was different. He glanced from Aric to Lusis and said, "Rangers?"

"You might have led with that." Redd put in.

"Northern Rangers," Lusis told the elf. "We've noticed something… unusual and come to consult with the elves on what it might be, and how to defeat its movements to the North of this great forest."

The elf moved between raindrops to turn to a sudden trio of his like, flanking him. "These Rangers have also felt something afoot in the land."

"Felt it in _the land_?" Aric snorted in retort. "We felt it in _our camp_. It tried to _eat_ Lusis. She fought it off, and even _she's_ not fully able to describe it for what it was."

Lusis felt her stomach butterfly. She fought not to spit again. The memory was stone cold. It throbbed into her mind like a lousy wound and made her insides feel coated with obscenity. When she could, she cast it far out of her thoughts, but it was connected to her like a rope to a net in deep water. Whatever she pulled up from the depths, it was tied to her. She could not escape it. And then she met the elf's pale green eyes.

Whatever he saw when his head tipped to take her in, she didn't need to speak about it further. A mercy. She wasn't a wordsmith like Redd, or waggish like handsome Aric. It wasn't that Lusis couldn't speak her mind that made her bad at talk. It was that she did.

The elf ducked his head in a little nod. "Please walk with us," he paused and decided to address them as, "Rangers of the Northern woods."

She followed, mutely. Generally, her men were quiet behind her. They were worried, she knew, for no matter how she forced herself, bribed herself, or how she struggled, to the good of all, to manage some kind of a delivery, she was unable to talk about what had befallen her. She was worn, weary of the fight of finding words to say. And now she was half afraid she'd run to the elves because that's what men overwhelmed with peril _did_ – or so her mother had often scoffed. In Redd's stories and histories, men very often reached embattled hands toward the heavens and prayed, and this resulted in elves marching in lines to the eleventh hour.

Here she was, a frightened fool, knocking at the door of a kingdom.

A waste of their time.

Her stomach clenched to the edge of collapse. She had to be helped through the great stone gates to Mirkwood. She prayed as she walked, _Slow, heart, and be still, hand. You've come all this way hoping for these gates. Courage now. May I find one kind heart, here, who will take heed of us. Who will help us_.

She was more than willing to trade her skills for that.

The elven court was full that day.

The land had been intemperate, and the weather unfavourable, and that led to petitions and debates in the locality. This was not just a matter of wood elves coming to settle disputes – for there was no warring, hostility, or violence allowed among their kind, as was decreed by their king – but of the encroaching human settlements, many of which were dependent on the great rivers Anduin, Forest, and Enchanted, as silt heavy as they tended to be, particularly through the forest stretch. Forest's flooding came in spring and saturated the land, building new distributaries, lakes and pools. It brought life and fresh soil with it. But the Enchanted never flooded. This was the charge of the Mirkwood King whose will kept its weighty hypnotic powers in check, lest they infect the Forest River that ran all the way through to the plains far beyond. In fact, the Mirkwood elves controlled a stretch of Anduin down from its headwaters beside the Forest. There was much contention about the laws and rules for river use, and the tithe that the Elven-king of Greenwood had put upon it. This filled the court, yearly, with dispute.

The king couldn't be bothered with much of this.

It was mostly the burden of the Kingdom's-seneschal, Eithahawn. He sat at a simple wood table in the throne-room, vastly aware of the empty throne at his back, not because of some woe or frustration that it was not occupied, but out of fear it would be.

You see, some of the best qualities of a seneschal were the worst qualities of A Certain King. A good seneschal was tactful, compromising, calm, and humble – prone to writing letters and drafting documents, and not to drawing swords. A Certain King did possess all of those qualities, yes, but in rather… meagre supply. Mirkwood had a proud warrior king and worse – a very shrewd one – and that meant if the Highness came by here the entire Court was going to spiral out of control in a hurry.

He had other matters. Dark and pressing matters to the North. That was the unquenchable strength of their King. Best to let him see to it.

The room in front of Eithahawn had close to a dozen people within it, and a queue along the wall benches, all under Silvan guard. Most everyone looked frightened to be in here. But… there was good cause for all of them. Only the most serious of issues landed on this particular doorstep.

"Damn elves. You sit in your sunny caves and your beech trees and try to dictate to-"

"All due respect, Mrs. Hockin," Eithahawn said over his paperwork, and avoided eye-contact with the dwarf woman, "unless you have some rightful claim on these lands with which to approach the Elven King in contest – armed contest, I suspect – I must suggest we focus on things more productive to the issue at hand." And the caves weren't exactly sunny today, either. Fires roared on both sides of the room to keep out the damp. His papers wilted before him. The Lord of Greenwood had no great love of dwarves. It was best that he not face the salty trader-woman. Eithahawn rather liked her business sense, but she would have had a poor reception from A Certain King.

She fixed him with a candle-coloured eye, "The river runs free. So should transit on it be free."

"Two issues with that Gamra Hockin," Eithahawn nodded in her direction and finally glanced her way. Her trade was growing. Her success now pushed at its margins. She knew she was about to jump to a different tithe and was desperately trying to avoid paying a share to the monarch whose people policed this long river and kept it safe for transit. She came every spring and autumn with a new argument, but, in the end, he was confident she could be negotiated with. "This river does not run free. If it did then your holding in Lowangles would be a flooded marsh, six feet deep, with the inundations and it is not. In fact, if all of our rivers ran free as you claim the yearly disaster of travelers falling into a trance outside of memory as they wander the woodlands would resume. That is dangerous."

"I suppose that's problem number one, is it? And I'm to believe that?"

"Hm. How tall are you?"

The woman was _well_ under six feet. She set her hands on her hips and pointed at him, "Don't even try that lip with me, young elf lord!"

Her teenaged dwarven son cringed behind her.

Eithahawn turned to one of the throne-room guards and said, "Farathel, would you kindly draw a cup-measure of the wild-Enchanted? Mrs. Hockin would like to examine its potency." His brows drew up a fraction and his pen dotted air. "Perhaps in a weak tea?"

Mrs. Hockin did her level best not to clap her palm to her forehead.

The Silvan elf woman took a step back, about to obey, when the dwarf relented. In fact, she looked down at her stout boots and chuckled. "You're a clever one, Lord elf. But I still won't believe you elves do squat to the river to keep it safe for us. I never will."

Behind the Kingdom's-seneschal, Farathel shifted weight testily. The elf beside her subdued her temper with a glance. Blood had been shed to keep this river and these forests safe. Eithahawn's warm blue eyes glided away from looking at the noise behind him and back to the dwarf woman. She twisted her red hair braid, lightly, in thought. "So be it, Mrs. Hockin. I am not here to change belief systems, merely to settle disputes. However, if the river runs free, and the transit is free, then we might consider the prices charged for your artisan work?" He flipped pages. "Umm – they are high, yes? But then the quality of your smiths is particularly good, as are the reports of their engraving. It is rewarding when one can afford the best, is it not? And there is the fee you charge for ferrying such good wares through 'dangerous lands by way of enchanted and perilous forest rivers', as your advert states."

She shut her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Something amiss?" Eithahawn smothered a friendly smile. He was required to be objective no matter how resourceful he found the dwarf businesswoman.

The younger dwarf behind her, nearly half again her small size, and doubtless the author of the advert, cringed.

"Are we at agreement, Gamra Hockin?"

She exhaled a long, low grumble of breath and then confirmed. "We are. We must be, indeed, Eithahawn King's-seneschal. Take my gold and give it to your Elfking. May it keep him warm!" She tossed her hair, stepped out of line, and dragged her son with her.

"It always does," Eithahawn sighed under his breath. Though, he knew that was, in fact, a common simplification. He marked her increase on the leger before him and thought about the usefulness of gold in the protection of his own kingdom. This was no game.

The only things that warmed the Elfking anymore appeared to be rage. And long dead memory.

Next came men – humans – in shackles. This time, the guard advanced him.

The elf-woman in charge of the dungeon stepped forward and placed their docket before him for consideration. He opened it, but he knew it well. Smugglers, whose camp had been detected several times in the past year. Their bad habit of poorly attending their fire had caught up with them and resulted in hectares of burn scar.

Eithahawn sat back and considered them.

Humans – saturated wet and tracking muck everywhere – entered at the back of the room and his glance passed over them at about the same moment when one of the patrol came to lean at his shoulder, "Rangers from the North."

Ah. Just what the day had been missing. It wasn't complicated or messy enough in here already. Rangers from the North, his eyes found the green-eyed Silvan elf beside him. "Dorondir, how urgent?"

"It is for you to decide," he bowed a little to the King's-seneschal. He straightened and removed himself from the room.

The response left a blank place in the seneschal's thoughts, full of questions.

_Business at hand, Eithahawn_.

The business at hand looked at him, burning hatred in their human faces. He mastered himself and tapped the docket. "You have come to plead your case? Is that… possible?"

One of the young men exploded at him, his shouts ringing in the cavern. "You don't own this land!" The yell was loud enough that Mrs. Hockin stopped on her way to the door, turned, and put her hand on her hammer.

Eithahawn extended a long, pale hand in air to waylay the sudden bristle of weapons in the room. "We have been here for Ages." He gently corrected the man's thinking. "If you mean to argue you can claim this forest and its mountains and rivers, and, thereby, are justified in-"

The guards had to keep him from darting forward to the table as he snapped, "Your lord is greedy and petulant, don't you think?"

Eithahawn rose to his feet without thinking, "_No_, I do _not_."

Silence riffled through the room, and at the very end of it, the Rangers had spread out, the lines of their bent, muck-choked bodies in quiet readiness for action. He was immediately reminded of wolves slowly encircling a man. In doing so they looked harmless. At first.

He eased back to his seat. "Let us be calm, friend. You committed a crime – two crimes, in fact. You can't change that now. And you are caught in it."

"The dwarf is right. You have _no right_ to the river and _no right_ to charge a tithe to men! There may be nothing I can do about being caught, but there will be more of us. You will have a price to pay for your greed. We will have our way."

Eithahawn didn't look up, "Is your way to burn down an entire winter-apple grove?"

The man laughed, "Who cares what kind of trees they-"

"I do." A Silvan elf raised her pale hands. The younger male beside her was her son and he had his hand on a knife – none too pleased with the humans at the moment. "As it was my grove, and over half of it has been razed. I'd have lost all except for the yearly sear that removed the build-up of undergrowth."

"What is your petition?" he flipped through the paperwork.

"That they be found guilty and imprisoned." She glanced across at the men, but their hot gazes were fixed forward and up. "They cannot be taught away from their backward-" she glanced out over Eithahawn's shoulder and her graceful voice stopped.

"Hold, friends," Eithahawn said, "steady heads, please."

But the room had ground to sudden, hissing silence.

Behind him, a suspicious creak made Eithahawn's shoulder blades prickle. His honey-blond hair, the byproduct of Sindar and Silvan extraction, rose on the back of his neck.

"And so it shall be done," said A Certain Elfking. His voice was smooth and low. And cold.

He'd arrived. Ideal. Eithahawn signed and closed the docket, then held on to the lip of the table with both hands.

"You! You live _too long_, so your ways _never change_!" the human man – Connul Dach by the docket – made a bitter laugh, "It's your kind who are backward! You've owned the land forever. I'd venture there's no handspan of earth your kind haven't walked in this world! What does that leave for the rest of us?"

"You are welcome to whatever you can take." The Elfking's voice paused, "_Outside_ of my forest." The air behind Eithahawn had gone cold.

The human growled, "You've lived too long. _That_ is the problem."

"The fire was an accident," snapped one of Connul's men. "Do you understand that? Do you understand accidents? Do you fancy you make no mistakes, _Elfking_?"

Connul surged up at the narrow wood table and unleashed a curse, "You _are_ mistakes – you should be dust! The lot of you!"

Eithahawn's chair leapt forward. He only just caught the docket and its contents with one deft hand, and kept the table steady with the other. On one side, Connul struggled ahead. On the other, the Elfking had swept in above Connul Dach's twisted face, his white teeth clenched. "If your argument for a fire that might have incinerated us all, yourselves included, is that my people should be _ashes_, I believe the threat you pose is clear. But_ do not_ _dare_ plunge at me and imagine that I am afraid of _you_."

The Elfking caught his temper and backed away. Eithahawn settled the table and chair between the pair and glanced at his tall, fiery king. Was it some fault in the Sindar character that twisted his veins into lava chutes? Everything about him was a bonfire when he was defied. Fortunately, his temper wasn't _too_ common an occurrence. But… he was no marble Lord. Neither was he radiated from moonlight like the Lady Galadriel. Eithahawn turned to face the human men who had been smuggling goods for the better part of a year, and had burnt hectares of woods to blackened stalks. Because King Thranduil had been cut out of the sun rather than the stars, he understood the menace of fire.

In the hissing silence of rain, the Elfking exhaled, "They shall be strangers to the sun." He raised a disinterested voice to add, "Spare them only if they never set foot outside of their cells."

The guard dragged the human men away.

"It was an accident!" the younger one howled. "It was only an accident! We can pay the fines!"

Eithahawn watched them disappear with a shuddering pity. But the Elfking, in the way of Kings, was harder than that. He couldn't afford to release these men, but it was still fearsome to witness.

The shouts faded as Eithahawn looked at the smuggled goods. It made his innards twist. All of this for scrap metal, deadfall, and cooking oil. He shut his eyes in a somatic sort of pain. Cooking oil. This should have gone by way of negotiation. He might have convinced them he could be trusted. He could think of some reasons for smuggling food basics along with pilfered metal – probably from the dwarven scrap yards – that commanded empathy.

"Eithahawn," suddenly the Elfking's voice was patient, "what is next?"

"There used to be an elf king here," Redd had been telling her, "an old and powerful elf ruler who came across the land and settled here. There are old books that talk about him. He was famous."

"For what?" Aric whittled a stick to a point, "crocheting? Needlepoint?" He looked around him. "These elves have _fantastic_ clothes, don't they?"

"Try not to be distracted, Aric. It makes you stupid." He paused and added, "_Particularly_ stupid." Before he snatched away the pointed stick. Then he looked around the golden stone of this airy cavern. Watery daylight streamed in through arches covered in fine glass, and in stations along the glass, symbols written in red and golden Elvish that he wished he could read.

He took out the ragged leather book and pencil stub, and looked around him.

This was Aric's brother, Icar. He was very similar in appearance to his brother, only quiet. In character, they couldn't have been more dissimilar. For example, when Icar wanted a holiday, he took his chalks and papers and went out into the wilderness, alone. When Aric wanted to have fun, it usually involved police and potential arrest at some point. And he usually took Steed with him. Which meant twice the bail. Lusis checked their archer and horse-whisperer and found the man was feigning sleep. She couldn't tell if it was in protest or if he was up to something.

Yes. Aric and Steed were generally decent men until put together.

Aric had snatched back the sharpened stick and continued on. "Famous for what?"

Redd had laughed, "This was an old book when my great-great was in the cradle. I read it when I was a boy and it mentioned this place, 'The Greenwood', and its golden king." Redd nodded at the man who forewent the throne for a high-backed chair and graven table at the foot of the dais. "Do you suppose that's him?"

"Dunno." Aric stopped whittling. Icar leaned to one side for a better vantage. "Was your golden Mirkwood Elfking famous for paperwork?"

Steed broke form when he snickered into laughter.

Redd chortled. "No-no. He was famous for a few things. His smarts in battle for one, and he would have seen many battles to hold onto all of the Great Greenwood. Oh, and Lusis."

She half turned, wet, shaky, and sleepless.

"Famous for his _beauty_ too." Redd winked.

"Redd… I will kick you in your bean-bags." Everyone grinned in response to that. But she glanced at the elf before her. He _was_ beautiful. But what odds? She watched as their dark-haired elf escort went up to greet the seated blond elf. They were _all_ beautiful. "So how would we know this famous king?"

"Oh, he'd be long gone now." Redd nodded in reply. "He's from the Elder Ages. He was born in the First Age, you see. So long ago that it beggars the mind to think how long ago that would be. By now he's passed to legend."

"Elves live a long time," Icar pointed out to no one.

"What did the book say?" Lusis looked back at the huge man. "Just in case."

"Uh… that he was a kind of elf – I don't remember the name. They're pale, silver, fair-haired, with grey in their eyes." They all scrutinized the elf seated at the table below the throne. He was fair and golden. He wasn't at all what one would consider silvery. Redd opened his arms and quoted from memory, "_He_ _is a crucible of notions; he has a furnace burning inside of him; that is Thranduil son of Oropher. And, from his beginning, the fire of him that burnt away gloom, reached out into the young world to consume friend and foe alike_."

"Sounds warm." Lusis put her hand on her ribs and pictured a furnace in there. She felt like a block of ice-cold permafrost, so she spoke enviously.

Aric glanced at the golden elf, "Too warm."

"I think the text meant fire as in," Redd considered his words, "charisma… or the sort of fire that comes of inspiration." Redd nodded sagely, and then frowned. "Though he was called terrible in battle."

"Terrible, _bad at it_?" Steed asked quietly, "Or terrible, _terrifying_."

"Let me think, man." Redd ticked off his fingers with his eyes on the gangly Ranger, "Smart, powerful, and beautiful. The facts."

"Won't he be well-met," Aric tapped the sharpened stick at the back of Lusis' hair and drying muck flaked away like black snow. "For an example, look at how ladylike Lusis is."

Icar tapped the stub pencil's eraser on his chin. "Aric, remember that time the goblins decided to use your skin as a water-bag, and Lusis beheaded them?"

Steed opened an eye and tallied, "So if Lusis was a _lady_ the way _you_ _like_ goblins would be filling you up at one end, and drinking out of the other."

"_Fires_," Aric swore.

"At least she wouldn't be bothering you, brother." Icar noted lightly.

Lusis grinned over her shoulder at Icar, and he smiled before he returned to drawing. He was a strange sort of Ranger. May the great Eagles guard him, seeing as his head was so far up in the clouds.

Redd added. "Oh yes! I do recall he was a warrior. Fought dragons and slew one by himself."

"Which is how you know it's a _fairytale_," Aric raised the stick and looked down its length and missed it when the throne-room's guard began to shift positions to cover him.

That's when ruckus started at the top of the room.

Lusis moved without thinking, her knees flexed into position for attack, just in case bloodshed broke out in this law-abiding room. She'd already gotten crosshairs on the back of the head of the man causing this. He was shackled. But that didn't mean he was secured.

That's when the great elf made his appearance.

These caverns occurred with many passages at many levels, and glowing wood staircases extended from one to the other in a beautiful net. The warmest-looking room, Lusis could scarcely see from the bottom of the throne-hall, she was only aware of a broad staircase and buttery golden light. Long legs appeared on the way down that staircase and they emerged iota by iota into a gloriously-draped elf so pale he looked like a cherry petal, so blonde under his tall, flowering corona, that his hair looked white. And he was breathtaking in a way where looking away from him was difficult, because it meant that one risked missing out on the way he moved, or spoke.

And he was stunning. When the humans in shackles flew at him, he seethed back at them in a way so god-awful beautiful it rattled the brain. Lusis shook herself. "How much you want to bet," she glanced back at Redd's gawp, "that one – his eyes are grey."

Steed uncoiled and got his hand on his short-sword. "What's elvish for 'furnace', Reddy?"

"Uh… _ur_."

"He's got lots of _ur_," Steed grimaced and snatched the pointed stick from Aric's hand. He looked at it and then aside to Lusis. "Sure you want to prod this guy?"

She reassessed her chances of success. If the assumption was correct, and this was their First Age furnace, he very well might reduce them all to ashes, but she would not survive him for a certainty. She, who could hardly speak of what afflicted her, saw it in a hurricane of certainties: he would have no patience for her impediments then destroy her rickety shell in a series of quick conflagrations, in a total absence of mercy. "We should leave," she nodded. And didn't move. Didn't look away from the tower of the Elfking. Or maybe it was a hurricane of _fears_? She couldn't tell. Couldn't remember the thin sliver of line in between fear and harm.

She hadn't been in this position since her childhood, of vulnerability, of having taken such deep damage it left her sucking air, robbed of the ability to even cry out for help.

She hissed out a breath to convince herself she could still breathe.

He looked dangerous. He looked everlasting.

The elves moved as silently as shadows, their hands like steely cords as they dragged the shackled humans away. Lusis bristled at the tears on a shouting man's face. It was a tragedy of timing, weeping for your sorry plight once your crime was done.

"We should leave." She turned on her heel and her group surrounded her, hid her from view.

A straight-legged woman of the guard appeared directly behind Aric. Over him. She was slightly taller, particularly in the golden helmet she wore. "Please approach the King's seneschal," the brown-haired elf paused, "You are summoned by the great Elfking of Taur-e-Ndaedelos."

Redd sped up. His hand shut around Lusis' wrist on one side, and Aric's on the other. "Mind your tongues. For the love of all holies, mind your manners."

"We'd be covered in less dirt if we came out of a kiln." Icar pointed out nervously.

"You're all right, brother." Aric was always quick to comfort his kin. "You'll be fine. It's me-"

"And you'll shut your clappers, friend. But I'm pretty sure we can't stick it out back here," Steed said under his breath. "Let's go. And… Redd, do your best with this, will you? Best to know what we're up against here. And if this is some kind of First Age revenant, it's better to be aware."

They started walking.

"He's not a revenant. Elves live a long time. Very long time, I guess," Redd coughed a little and sounded anxious. He glanced around him, flustered before he managed to mutter, "Lusis, I read about this King many times when I was little and I was afraid of him, then, of his great age, his sword that slew dragons, and his cold, endless heart. It has seen Ages come and go. What are the lives of men to him? What is your life? Little, I think."

"He terrifies Ranger children. Great news." Lusis said aside. She forced herself to breathe evenly as she advanced in the room, aware she tracked sludge behind her. The closer she got to him, the tighter her throat felt, until she wheezed, "Anything else?"

They went a few paces before Redd added, "This can't be."

"Could be." Aric nudged him. "Stay with us, Redd."

"I'll prove it's not him." Redd seemed to recover himself by this hypothesis.

They drew closer. The pale elf was tallest of those around him, and so still, like a hallucination of a being. His face was so indifferently beautiful it was like staring into the face of an alabaster bust, not a living being. Lusis glanced over Redd. "Thoughts, Redd?"

His voice was a low whisper, "Uh, so marginalia in one of the books said _The Elfking was scarred by dragon's fire_. _His face was disfigured on one side_. Do you see an indication of that? I don't. Even if this King is called Thranduil, it isn't the old Elfking. We may stand a chance with him."

"Really now." Steed pulled a face. "Because there _less_ to fear in a _new_ Elfking?"

They were close now, and the other elf, the one with golden hair like honey and a rope-like braid over one shoulder, rose up from his wonderfully hewn beech-wood chair to observe him. His eyes were a mingling of blue and green. He was not as tall as the paler elf.

The gold-haired elf took a step toward them and cautioned, "That is close enough, Rangers."

"Wouldn't want to get the great King all muddy." Aric said automatically.

Everyone looked at Aric. He belted-up, mashing his lips into a pressurized line that curved like the bottom of a noose.

"He's here all week," muttered Steed.

The Elfking's crown fascinated Lusis because it appeared to be alive. She could see buds and small velvety white blooms along the crown of his head. Amazing. It didn't look as if these were cut branches with fading leaves and blooms. It looked alive. It was thriving. Blooming.

Her eyes snapped down to his face, which was _heart-breaking_ because it was so impassively affable – an _expressionless_ expression. Glowing gloriously and carefully lifeless. She could compare its planes and symmetries to a glass doll's face if any doll maker could be near as skilled. His eyes turned out to be the blue-tinged grey of metal, or the colour of distant mountains.

This Elfking was _so_ pleasing to the eye. And it was _so_ terrible.

He was under there, somewhere.

Lusis chased her skittering breath. "You look like ice over a mountain lake staring, my Lord."

He moved, but such a small fraction it might have been in her mind. But then his voice pooled out around her, chill and hard. "And you are as filthy as a newborn Uruk-hai. But under your crust of earth… you are afraid."

"Maybe," she caught her breath, "I'm afraid you'll burn holes straight through me with those metal eyes, oh King." His stare did not abate in response to this.

The Elfking turned, which was a production, though she sensed it was natural to him – how he moved. He swept up the stairs and draped himself into his massive throne of wood and monstrous elk antlers. He looked out at her, around a tine.

The golden-haired elf blinked at the floor around them and then sucked a breath. "Approach the throne, Rangers of the North." Then he helplessly watched them track mud up the gleaming stairs and across the mirror-bright dais.

The Elfking said, "You have come down from the mountains. There is great disturbance in the lands above us of late." His head tipped a little. "You have the taste of the mountain wind on you, but also something else."

"Good old Mirkwood silt, I'm guessing." Aric said nervously. "We came by it honestly. We _did not_ use the river, _at all_-" he endured an elbow from Steed.

The Elfking's blue-silver eyes slid to take in Aric as though the man was a clear glass vessel full of water, and when the noises stopped, they glided back to Lusis again.

She'd shut her eyes to focus. It took a lot to fight the tightness in her throat, the one that choked off words. If only she could show his thoughts the thing she'd experienced. "I've come with a warning. There is something abominable, some slow power rising in the earth in the foothills North of here."

When she opened her eyes again, his expression looked impassable as the mountain chain itself. He told her, "Of that I was aware. You have come all this way to warn me when the elves of this wood know well the feeling of darkness swelling against the borders."

He was staring fires into the sockets of her eyes.

Was that what it was like to live all the Ages? Did you just burn on the inside?

Maybe he'd _swallowed_ the dragon he'd killed.

"No Lord," she had to close her eyes to think straight. "You misunderstand. I don't come to tell you this because I sensed it. I come to tell you because," she ran into a barrier, "I come to you because," she looped a hand around the front of her throat.

The air around her shifted. The Elfking had leaned over her. He was close now. She opened her eyes and struggled for air.

"She's sorry, Elfking," Icar stepped forward and curled a hand around Lusis to keep her upright. "We apologize. She was attacked by something in the foothills and fought free, but it cost her."

Lusis 'eyes snapped open and she drew a deep breath. "Yes."

"Ranger, I am aware of what it is to be left with unspeakable scars." The Elfking's head tipped to one side. He froze, serpentine for a moment, lost in memory that delivered him up to her powerful and unrepentant, "And to heal them. Tell me, what is this thing you saw? That I _do not_ know."

"My Lord, have no doubt she saw it," Icar explained in earnest, "the problem is that she can't speak of it. It's like something broke in her – a yoked bell but with the clacker cut away. She can't make a sound."

The Elfking's eyes narrowed. "Where did the harm come to pass?"

"She knows the place," Steed put in quickly. "Maybe she could point it out on a map?"

Sound. Light. All drew back from Lusis. She fought to hold on to the conversation, or to feeling in her body. She could see the light of the Elfking far away, and hear the fire-rumble of his voice in his chest. His eyes swept her, and that seemed to be an audible thing too, like a voice in her thoughts, as his bright blue-silver gaze sent sparks over her cheeks. Looking at him, her throat _burned_.

Redd lifted her off her feet.

She sat up in bed.

Except she didn't have a bed.

Maybe there was one in her parent's house?

This was far from her parent's house.

Lusis rolled up to her hands and knees and looked at the headboard, which was a huge white wood section of what had to have been a massive tree, graven through its many rings with stands of exquisitely rendered beech trees. The sheets were a soft golden red in colour, a weave so excellent it was like nothing she'd ever seen. Well, almost nothing she'd seen – she'd been here a day now, after all. She sank down on her haunches in this huge bed and looked at the embroidered pillows. The top sheet crackled when she moved, stuffed with goose down.

Every time she inhaled she smelled trees, green things.

She wore a shapeless shift that was colourlessly pale until she moved. Some of the threads were silver. They glinted a bluish colour. Only the moonlight lit the arched space in which she slept. Outside the window wind made aspen trees rattle their leaves in a steady shush. It was a soothing sound. She got out of bed and searched for her clothes, but she didn't even find a boot. Nothing. No weapons either, which really made her feel exposed. It was dark, still, and warm though. And she was clean.

But _hungry_.

Outside of her immediate space she found a hall of similarly hollowed-out stone. There were seven rooms on the side where she lay, and she was in the first of them, her bed on an angle to the wider room beyond, and the window through which she could see the leaves waggling. She blinked at the windows because she'd never seen a casement so functional before. In the middle of the wider glass, a ring of silver housed a smaller window hinged to open. A thin mesh covered the opening.

When she looked outside, she could see that the trees were in an enclosed courtyard.

Not what she was looking for.

Fresh air blew across her bare knees and the shift billowed. She swatted at the material, but it wouldn't cooperate with the natural laws that governed wind and wool.

Then again, it probably wasn't wool.

Seven beds set back in deep stone arches, and all with the back wall neatly carved at the top to let the light through openings that were shaped like phases of the moon. There were only three rooms opposite, again, on an angle. They were far from her own bed. All were occupied by humans. Her humans. From the living stone wall out, Icar, Aric, and then Steed. The only other occupied slot was the bed right beside hers. In that hollowed out section of wall, Redd sat up, fully dressed, sword in hand, shield over his core, reclined against the huge headboard, asleep.

Lusis smiled at this. If he'd been outside in the open air, nothing would have caused Redd to sleep like that. She walked out into the Horn-shaped hall and found the reason it was curved as it was, narrower where Icar slept, and wider where she did. A steel filigree cage enclosed a black cairn there. She was curious to see bronze pools cut into the floor, at the foot of this stove. They steamed with heat.

Make no wonder the place was toasty.

She headed down the trio of steps that led up to where she'd slept and walked through slanting moonlight toward the far wall of the… cavern. Really, it was a central hub – a large empty wood-floored room with a thick, bubbly glass window overhead. Off that hub were more rows of hollowed-out rooms, doorless, dark, and lined with lovely beds, all of them in long curling arms. It was shaped… like a sun. A small trio of stairs led up to it.

As she kept walking, she ticked off corners on her left and right fingers. Honestly? She'd never been inside a building that required more than ten turns to find the front door.

Well, she wasn't in the North anymore.

And it wasn't her parent's house. For sure.

She kept walking, now stretching her ability to map the way – the turns – inside her head. She grimaced, "How in Doom's fires do thieves _do_ it?" She meant, get through a rich man's house.

She was glad this wasn't overheard. It would be dangerous to talk this way in such a place, a place that was the very, extremely massive home of an Elfking. The shift she wore didn't comfort her. Someone had put her into it after all. That made her itchy, as strangers touching her always made her itch. Gone was the hope that wouldn't be true among the elves. She didn't like it as she didn't like being dirty, or for things in her pack to be in a state of disorder.

She yawned into the palm of her hand and tried to remember what had happened to put her in that bed under Redd's guard.

Everything went blank in the throne-hall. She stopped before the polished wood staircase. This was where the two elves had been. The lovely golden elf with his soft features, who'd stood up to bar her passage, and also where she'd first seen the pitiless silver eyes of the Elfking.

Lusis wondered if Redd had puzzled out the King's identity.

She found the throne-hall. Massive, empty, beautiful. She was seized by a desire to sit in the wood throne, ringed as it was by the antlers of what had to be a tremendous elk buck – she was sure they were ten feet wide. She bet the bull elk had been about seven feet tall – that was 21 hands. Bigger than any horse she'd ever even seen.

She circled the throne without daring to go near enough to it to touch even a tine.

"From here, though, I know the way out." She whispered before she set off in the direction of her men. She loped there, back through her map.

She lingered in a long hall of archways. The spring wind blew freely through here, warm, damp, but finally without rain. Outside the familiar sound of a sword slicing air caught her attention. The caves were so shallow in places that the depressions outside became courtyards. She edged back from the sight of the Elfking's swords arching around his shoulders so quickly it was a blur.

Two of them. Fighting proficiently two-handed was beyond her skills yet.

So he practiced his swordsmanship when he couldn't sleep.

And that wasn't exactly a wooden waister he was using.

She watched his form for a while and grew colder and colder. Fast. Precise. Connected.

It took under two minutes for her to acknowledge she'd never seen someone that proficient.

He was gifted with a weapon and it was a chilling gift. Which meant he was probably _always_ armed. _And_ he had a temper.

She sank down into a lower profile and slunk carefully along the arches.

It also meant she would always need to be armed.

It was the only way to have a fighting chance with him.

And she turned away from him then, before more observation could make plain the truth. If that silver tongue of fire ever turned his sword against her, all hope was lost. But that was too disturbing to think of when she was so desperate to share what she knew, but so powerless to do so.

She linked her hand around her throat and wondered why, with the long solitudes of her life, she didn't just walk away.

Lusis wasn't ever aware of the several elven guards who'd followed her out from her assigned quarters through the throne-hall and then all the way back.

"What was she doing?" The Elfking's pale blue eyes, very nearly the silver of coinage, slid under pale eyelids. It was impossible to assign a mood to the Elfking. He was currently inscrutable.

Fond of his creature comforts, he reclined in a massive steaming copper tub, its steadily heated water pale with milk, and its area generous enough for six. This was a lot for a man who didn't even employ a concubine. Neither the one indulgence nor the lack of another moved Eithahawn. He'd been in service here for a very long time. He was stalwart in his position. And it was his firm belief that A Certain King had earned his comforts.

But he'd been silent too long. Those orb-bright eyes opened and pinned Eithahawn to the ornate topiary of the King's bath house.

He bowed a fraction. "Forgive me, my Lord. It's nothing. Just thinking."

Thranduil sank into the milk bath until his hair was covered. His farseeing eyes looked at the constellations on the ceiling of the cavern. "Are you thinking about the fact the end of the One Ring, and the overthrow of such earthly darkness should have ended encroachment into these lands?"

"My Lord, every Rohvanion tree is under your sway."

"You misunderstand me," Was all he said, and then sat up. Milky water sloshed out of his hair and splashed over his shoulders. He wrung out, impatiently. It was difficult to watch, because Eithahawn had been like a son to the Elvenking and -Queen, and the Elfqueen had used to _pet_ her Lord's glowing Sindar hair. She would have been the one to attend to this for him. But she was no more, and he treated every inch with callousness.

"I'm sorry, my Lord," Eithahawn murmured. He bowed more deeply to hide the sudden play of emotion over his features.

Thranduil tipped his head to one side. "Are you well?"

"Yes, my Lord. Please don't trouble yourself."

The Elvenking made a soft under-breath sound of amusement. His existence had, at its core, troubling himself for the elves and lands of his kingdom. "Do you suppose you are the exception?"

Eithahawn maintained his bow, "I'm sorry, my Lord… I do not understand."

"Yes, of course," Thranduil's pale hand swirled up through the milk-bath water so that he could remove the large moonstone ring from his index finger. He dropped it into a silver basin and stared into its misty depths. "The problem is the nature of darkness and shadow. Shadow, itself, cannot be seen until a light is cast upon dark places. It is not as simple a thing as taming a river, or damming it so that the land beyond bears no resemblance to what it was prior. A shadow is impossible to eliminate."

"But, my King, we cleansed Dol Guldur and freed these lands."

"Yes we did," Thranduil finished strangling his sun-bright hair and pulled it forward, over his chest and out of the water, "along with Lorien. The challenge being that most of our foes, by their nature, lacked the valor and loyalty to fight a cause through to its bitter end." That gave him pause to remember his people _did not_ lack that trait. Losing so many was so painful that, momentarily, he couldn't function. Then his mind resurfaced from those horrors in the hopes of preventing another. He blinked at the moonstone his wife had given him, "As a result, I suspect, we moved some of that taint around. There are still dangers in these woods to fear. Our patrols are still needed."

"That… is true. They don't lack for work."

"What was she doing?"

"The girl simply woke, checked her troop, walked the halls until she found the throne-room, and then returned." Eithahawn told his Lord. "She seemed curious about the throne, but no more."

He came up the steps from the tub and down the other side, at the birch dressing table he wrapped in a long silvery-blue robe. He picked up his wet hair and tossed it over his back. "And that is all?"

"She did stop to watch you, I'm told." Eithahawn tried not to frown. He frowned altogether too much, in his own opinion. "You were not asleep at such an hour."

"No," said the Elfking's reflection in the glass. "I… wonder if peace is suited to my nature."

"We have been so long without it, how would one know?" Eithahawn pondered only to find his King's reflection staring at him with such a strange look – thwarted resolve best described it. Eithahawn had a sudden dropping feeling. His words had not been meant as a criticism of A Certain King's vocation, but as a commentary on the wider world. He stared at the floor in mute horror. There were no words to say that could clear away the taint of that thought.

"She went to the throne-room." Thranduil lifted a white comb through his mane of silvery-blond hair. It passed through smoothly. He didn't let anyone assist him anymore. It was so strange. He couldn't tolerate a nearness anymore. His own son could scarcely touch him. Eithahawn had never seen anything like it in an elf. But the Elfking finished and set down the comb. "I think I may understand."

"She hid from you. She watched you. What if she means you harm, my Lord?" Eithahawn's core crumbled away to the anxiety of losing a leader who'd fairly raised him, and whom he loved and admired. "What if that is why she is here, and is part rather than a symptom of the problem? The assumption we make that the Rangers are good, instead of powerful or rogue-"

Thranduil turned and stalked in his direction, soundless on his bare feet in the bathhouse. "She gives you no reason to fear yet."

Eithahawn put his head down in submission to this point. Firstly, it was right, secondly, it would be impossible for him to explain that he very much wanted to protect his kingdom's protector, and, due to the horrors of battle, the only father he'd ever known. He imagined the emotion playing over his face would be alarming so he hid it.

Thranduil stood before him, a silvery candle-flame, and then said, "You fear this change in the North and what it might mean for our people."

The Kingdom's seneschal mastered himself and nodded. "I want peace, my Lord. Not battles. Not threats. Not shadows in the North."

"That is not our world." The King said.

Eithahawn looked up. His King's voice had drawn far away. He was gone to the other end of the cavern to rinse himself from the milk-bath, and dress.

That left the Kingdom's-seneschal with the quelling realization that there was nothing he could do for his Elvenking. But serve the kingdom.

He was no swordsman.

Lusis' clothes were on the narrow trunk at the foot of her bed. Her boots as well, when she woke. The major difference being that they were all clean when she pulled them on again. Everything, and the holes were sewn shut with such skill there was scarcely a sign any injury had been done to them. Her weapons were all strangely bright and had seen the whet stone too. She didn't even mind strangers had touched everything.

Elves. They could have traded in these skills much to the improvement, she thought, of their fortune, but of course, she looked around her, they already seemed rather well-to-do. There wasn't an easy place to change in these rooms, but it was managed through Lusis standing behind Redd's back. He was a colossus, and better armed than a wardrobe door.

"I guess you live a few centuries and the whole prospect of being in your altogether is much less of a... thing. Less daunting, I suppose." Redd cleared his throat and glanced around the empty hall before him. "No one yet."

"Good," Lusis noted. She was having a bit of a struggle with the harness-like undergarments the elves had given her for her upper body. It was comfortable and just hard enough to be protective. Inventive creatures. "I wonder if that's true, that nudity thing. Or if it's just seen as a natural state among these people. They are all sort of… pretty." She actually admired how clean they were.

"But cold." Aric called from further down the hall, waiting to pass to the greater room.

"Maybe, but they don't seem to be any _less_ moral than a human, at least not at first glance. With that temper, this Elfking is far from perfect, and that's sort of r eassuring considering all of Redd's stories about them. But they do appear to be less mortified by certain things – this may be one of those things." Lusis shrugged on her shirt and fastened the ties for her pants. Envious of the elves for their lack of shame.

She came out from behind Redd, strapping on her sword.

"You're only easily recognizable when you're armed," Aric told her when she stepped into the hall. His head jerked up in her direction. "What happened to your hair?"

"I washed it." She said flatly. "Or someone did." A Ranger's life was full of glamourie.

Redd, who knew her aversion to other people's hands, grinned. "Oh, you have to be excited."

Lusis turned around about ready for a wilting curse, but she stopped short.

"It is morning and there you are, right as the weather," said the dark-haired elf who, she swore, had appeared at the end of the hall between glances. She'd drawn a knife at him out of pure surprise, but he remained pleasant, "Ah, hello to you too, small blade. You look fierce today. And clean."

She put it away, blushing. "This wouldn't happen if you stamped your feet."

He said, "I was." There was a sure glint of amusement in his features, though. This was the same guard from patrol the day before, and he opened his hands now. "Let's get reacquainted, shall we? I am Dorondir Caduion and I am a patrol Captain. You are Lusis, yes? Do you have another name? One never knows with humans."

"Lusis Buckmaster." She stepped toward him and wasn't sure if she could clasp his hand like a decent person. He might think her too familiar, or maybe unclean – but he solved the debate by reaching out both his pale hands so that when she linked hers into his, he could pat the tidy knot they made. She began to think you got to be Captain on patrol by knowing enough about other races of beings to greet them kindly, and not cause them to think you meant them undue harm.

"I know that name," he released her hand. "They are the couriers of the North, yes? Buckmasters? Or that is how we know them."

She nodded in assent. "That would be the family. They carry messages. Packages. Bring resupply across the North. Ferry the lost and the wounded. They've done it for a long time now."

"Yes," he said lightly, "I was a boy, as I recall."

Considering 'a boy' summed up close to two and a half centuries of history, that was intimidating.

"And the rest? These men of yours?" Dorondir's gestured hand was so graceful, it seemed to be in praise of her Ranger brood.

"Friends of the family. Traditionally speaking." She turned and indicated Redd. "Redd is from the Ayesir family. You may know them because they guard the Northern Hoard."

"He is _a librarian_," he said approvingly. "Yes, the Buckmasters would have worked with them closely, I agree, ferrying all those tomes out of war-torn regions and back again. They live in the mountain."

"Underground," he agreed. "But a bit deeper than this, and with locked vaults of books." He smiled as he remembered it. "It's a bit difficult to find, but we like it that way." When he clasped Dorondir's hand, he had to reach down. The elf's hand vanished, utterly.

"And you appear to be part bear." Dorondir spoke in an approachable manner.

"You should see his mother," Aric cracked, which got him a dark look from everyone but Icar. Icar regularly found his brother's antics ridiculous.

"These are the Awnson brothers, Icar is the quiet one, and Aric is the one who's wanting for a cuff in the side of the head."

"That he does." Redd grumbled and pointed at Aric's smirking grin.

Lusis' brows went up, "And the final man is Steed Roanhead. His family works with horses, as you can imagine." She glanced at Steed's blue eyes. He was truly one of the Dunedain.

"Used to be big enough to do trade with the Rohirrim. Well… some while ago."

"You aren't unlike the horse lords in presentation. We have hosted the Riddermark before," Dorondir confirmed and then gave a small bow. He indicated they should follow him as he headed down the stairs from where they'd slept, "And this is Elfking's great Greenwood, or Mirkwood, as most humans call this place. Though it's not nearly as dark, of late. The forests are still quite thick and remote, which means there is a natural inclination to unforeseen dangers. Move through the wild carefully. We lay in supplies in woodland stands and cover what we can in patrol, but our lands have increased of late, and there are many ways unfrequented by our kind."

"I need to speak to the king. I have no intention of travelling further into your land." Lusis told him and tried not to gawp at the incredible engravings of music along the walls.

"So you do," he agreed, "but it doesn't seem to come to you naturally."

She frowned, "Then I should apologize to him before I try again. But I must find a way."

"I am instructed to get a meal in front of you," he actually smiled, which was very lovely. "Nothing as fearsome as delivering you to the king for an apology."

"_Is_ he fearsome?" Redd asked the elf, curiously.

"The Elfking of Mirkwood is formidable," the elf confirmed. He paused on the steps and turned to face Lusis. "But you are _guests_ of the Elfking." He led them into a clearing above which a great stone dome had been erected. As it was still predawn, the stars stared down at her from the dome's glass.

Lusis marveled at the sheerness of the whole affair. It looked like a web. In gaping at it, she wasn't alone. Icar was already scratching on his book. Aric nearly walked into a Silvan elf woman with long pale red whorls of hair. She looked as delicate as a patch of blushing scilla that had climbed through the last of the winter snow. The elf smiled, softly, in passing.

There were many small platforms in this clearing, they were thronged with elves in conversation arrayed around the many benches or curled on furs laid on hillocks of green.

Dorondir led them over a small footbridge under which a brook bubbled. They passed through an overarching shadow and down stairs to a true marvel. This final platform was cut into a cliff-face. A natural depression in the land – something of a discrete valley – sat in the middle of the Elfking's cavern home. It was difficult to see until the light rose some, but the valley was closed in on all sides by the citadel. It otherwise seemed wild. The brook fell down into it leaving a fine spray in air. This platform was likewise covered in a web of glass and sealed by panels of the same. They passed down into its confines and found a long glossy table awaited them. It flickered in the light of huge fireplaces along the graven mountain wall.

It was a bit fine for a collection of Rangers. They slunk into it as if they might conceivably be doing something wrong. Lusis narrowed her eyes at Aric, seeing as he was ogling the silver laid out on the white table.

They all settled down to a meal there.

"I'd have preferred the room with the pretty elf girls." Aric muttered when Dorondir withdrew to the door.

"Which is why they wouldn't have preferred it," Steed snorted in reply. "I'm sure."

"These buildings are lovely," Icar's voice was wistful. "They're ideally constructed to keep one man away from another."

"Odds are that one man is their King. He doesn't seem warm. Never did in the books either, but he is competent, I think." Redd's eyes widened over his goblet. "Ooh, try the drink here, Aric. That'll be something that meets your approval!"

"Bacon," Steed said minutes later. He heaved a mighty sigh. He'd finished a steaming plate of nut-butter rolls, several apple pastries, a plate of chopped fruit, and a large and delectable salad. "I like mushrooms as much as the next man-"

"Which is to say, not much." Icar shook his head. He had stuck to the fruit and fat slices of several types of bread with butter and preserves.

"-but if they trotted in a pig, I'd clean it up and cook it for them."

Redd chuckled, but made no complaint about his meal.

"That might turn a few heads," Eithahawn said in a diplomatic tone. The firelight glanced off his golden hair and cast a soft glow on the warm stone walls of this place. "I am sorry. You will not often find the meat of beasts in these halls."

Lusis rose and bowed. "There isn't any need to apologize. We've imposed on you, and brought you nothing but unanswered questions in return for your hospitality."

"Ah, but you _have_ the information. It's a matter of getting that intelligence before the Elfking." He gestured at the bench and Lusis nodded her assent that he join them. He settled down across from her and folded his well-kept hands together. "May I call you Lusis?"

"Most people do," she grinned, but then her manners caught up with her. "I'd be honoured to be known by my first name here."

"Please call me Eithahawn. I'm the Kingdom's seneschal – it means I can act in the name of the Elfking in simple matters of administration within the forest."

"Big job," Redd blinked across at the blond elf.

"I am trained to it." The elf said simply, "It is a rather large job, I would think, to patrol the Northern mountains. What remnants we have of the darkness that choked this land, I have heard much of it fled into those places and can yet be found there. Generations will not remove it. Apart from the fact the men of Angmar have not changed their ways."

"Both our peoples know something about holding the line against that ilk." She told Eithahawn. It confused her that he seemed somewhat surprised by this admission. She considered this and said, "Once an Elfking from these parts fed my… my mother's family. It was after the Last Dragon fell, so a long time back, but it's never been forgotten by her people."

Now Eithahawn's expression brightened, which was daunting. He'd been dazzling enough to begin with. "Ah. Thranduil."

"That name, I know," Redd nodded and tapped a meaty fingertip on the smoothness of the table. "The Hoard, that's a repository of human and elvish books in the Misty Mountains, it makes mention of him and his father, an elf named Oropher – the 'tall beech tree' who died in the Second Age in the Battle of Dagorlad. There was some difference between him and this other powerful elf, Gil-galad."

This made Eithahawn break courtly form when he uttered a soft, short laugh and repeated, "_There was some difference between him and Gil-galad_." The elf immediately looked down at the shining table and his dark-golden brows rose up, "Dear me."

"Am I wrong?" Redd's own brows drew down as if daring the elf to dispute him.

Eithahawn glanced up, "You are not. The Noldor and Sindar," and he made an open-palmed gesture that ended in a quick circle of his hand in air. And whatever that meant was likely obvious to another elf. "It is… good that you know some of the histories. Surprising. But, I think, a good thing. I would hope," and he glanced at Lusis here, "that it would teach you to trust in us somewhat. While our methods are limited, and we, ourselves, merely imperfect creatures, we have long sided with good."

Lusis popped that particular soap-bubble. "Sauron was an elf, they say."

The seneschal looked horrified. "Maiar. Whatever he became, he was _Maiar_. And that is a _very_ different magnitude. It took the strength of many, many brave men and elves to defeat him for that reason." He thought a second and then amended, "Too many."

This didn't move Lusis. "Anyone know what a Maiar is?"

Redd was pale. He looked like he couldn't imagine how he was still breathing. He'd missed the question, "Did… did the Elfking know when he marched on Dol Guldur what this thing was?"

"Oh yes." Eithahawn's chin rose. "But he is as brave and just in the end as he is," the elf crumpled a little, "difficult and demanding." Now a rather friendly smile crossed his face, reserved, it seemed, for Redd. "You have read about him then? You know of what I speak?" He seemed to be looking for some form of confirmation, some fellowship between them.

But Redd shook his head clear, twice. "That Elfking? _That_ one?"

"Is Thranduil. Son of Oropher," Eithahawn looked charmingly confused, "But you knew so, yes?"

Redd chewed air for a moment. A look passed among the Rangers that very-much excluded their part-Sinda host.

"Bit of a temper," Redd said under his breath, "that one."

The lights seemed to come up in the room – Eithahawn's smile widened until they could see his lovely white teeth. He nodded softly. Understanding.

Not comforting.

Lusis put her head into her hands and pushed back her hair. "I think it best we beg some horses from you and ride on to Lorien. I'm eager to help. I want to help," she told the golden elf, "but it hasn't proven as simple a thing as telling someone else about it, no matter the pressure they apply. Force won't help." She knew that.

"Ride on to Lorien alone?" Eithahawn held up a waylaying hand. "Firstly, it is further than you are imagining, and more difficult to traverse than you hope. Lorien isn't like the Mirkwood seat, Lusis, none but elves may enter those woods. You would be turned away. With force if necessary. And while it is true that negotiations have been opened between Lorien and Mirkwood, it is still not a place that Mirkwood Silvan can travel lightly. Or at all. And certainly not our king. The King of Lorien may be a Sinda, but they do not agree."

"Maybe because your Elfking isn't agreeable." Aric snorted.

Eithahawn's expression shifted from genial to suddenly sharp. "If he were disagreeable, friend Ranger, you would be floating down the Forest River full of arrows. We keep to our own in these woods, it is true, and do not involve ourselves in wider matters, but it has been with good reason. Holding a line, as you say. Yet we have good relations with the humans around us and we let others pass our lands. It is a more localized, and very different kind of diplomacy than a place like Rivendell would practice, hidden from the world in its own way, by being secreted in mountain passes, but our involvement is just as real. Kindly do not disparage my King. Certainly not in the company of the people he guides and safeguards." Sparks fairly flew off his words.

"He apologizes," Icar thumped his brother in the leg under the table. "He apologizes, sir elf, and he thanks you for the food, and shelter, and safety you've extended to us."

Lusis, meanwhile, was seeing no signs of weapons on the seneschal.

Eithahawn exhaled and steadied himself. "Peace, Icar Awnson." He'd clearly been briefed by Dorondir, but that was little surprise of a man vetted to act for the King. The seneschal shut his eyes, his head bowed. "I too would speak for my warrior brother, before he was lost taking Dol Guldur. We are not dissimilar. But I must warn you… here the elves are loyal, we are dedicated and grateful for the guidance of our Elfking. We know him." He made that ineffable hand gesture in air again, but this time thoughtlessly. He hadn't words for what he was trying to say.

Lusis noticed this, but her thoughts were interrupted when Steed reached over Icar and gave Aric a clout in the back of the head.

The steady shushes that were the only signs of elven foot-traffic outside the balcony paused with the sound of the blow, but Eithahawn witnessed this act with some amusement and he, somehow, shifted his weight to curl his legs under him with very little movement. Graceful, these elves. "But there may be another reason not to depart, Lusis. The darkness gathering has been growing more pronounced of late. It troubles the Elvenking greatly. Time would be lost, and… I suspect you could ride to Rivendell, ride to Lorien, ride even to the Undying Lands if you could. The problem will not abate. You cannot speak of it."

She stopped picking at a pillowy-soft roll and stared at the elf. "What do you know about this?"

"You should be told what came to pass after your incident so that you may be fully aware of why we've maintained you." Eithahawn's hands clasped together and his expression became soft. "Your collapse left you airless, and so we elves had to force air into your lungs – it is a method of ours." He paused. His expression stilled. His eyes suddenly averted downward.

Light passed through the room.

The Elfking swept out of the net of officials in his attendance. His long crimson coat fanned around him against the tableau of forest beyond. Stars winked out behind him as he went, now that day was coming. He came to drop into the high-backed chair at the head of their table. This put him in Lusis' arm's reach, just on her right. No one spoke.

In fact, Redd seemed to be staring at the tall elf's wood crown, holding his breath.

The Elvenking's graceful hand gestured the other elves away, and they retreated to line at the far end of the balcony. Lusis felt for them. If they could not speak to the King they needed, they were to go to the Kingdom's seneschal… _also_ at breakfast.

The Elfking eased forward in his seat and the firelight passed across his face and hair in a great wash of radiance that made his ice-blue eyes look like water. Again, his motions were so alien when compared to his own kind. Maybe it was his great age. But this close, she could smell trees and embers. "There is a ring upon you. The shadow of a rope on your neck, as witnessed when you were revived-"

"Revived?" She blinked rapidly and realized she'd interrupted the Elfking.

"-and your new master, whomever that may be, pulls it tight when you try to speak of what you've witnessed, or matters of equal importance, like how you evaded this dark force."

Lusis stood up and clapped a hand to her throat, "There's _no_ such noose!" But at the same time she said it, she very much sensed it was true.

She just couldn't stand containment. Tight spaces gave her issues.

His head rose slowly and he told her, "The affliction is not a matter of this world. Whatever you saw, you have been _muzzled_. The enigma here, Lusis, is why you were not simply _killed_." For a long and airless moment he leaned onto the high back of the chair and stared into her eyes, openly. It was like having a watchtower fire in direct line of vision. The light in the room was dimmed by him. She could see sunlight inside his chest that radiated up- and outward through his veins and his skin, lighting up his hair.

She sank down to her seat again, and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. The man wasn't _glowing_. That was _an irrationality_.

She looked up and discovered that he'd sunk to repose against wood carvings of trees decorating the chair back. His proud head turned in her direction, lost in silent consideration of her. To her eyes, he still appeared to be candlelit from the inside.

Just as suddenly, he pushed back from the table, rose, and headed in the direction of his now chattering officials. He pivoted slowly at the stair and spoke to Eithahawn, who, himself, had risen to his feet. The Elfking's voice thrummed in elvish, _exquisite_, and the Kingdom's seneschal inclined his head and made some small acquiescence aloud.

The Elfking went up the stairs amid the buzz of his people.

"Do not be alarmed," Eithahawn's hair slithered across silk and pooled down the front of his shoulder in buckling waves, "his agenda is eventful. He told me that he wanted to make time for you this morning. I suspect he will-"

Several bells began to ring at once. Across the great divot in the land, birds shot up from the trees. Lusis had her sword out in an instant and tossed her body across the table to the bench beside Eithahawn. She stepped in front of him and faced the only direction – barring above – that was feasible for attack. Then she was off her feet.

Eithahawn set her down on the floor. She and her men wound up running along with dozens of elves. Guards encountered them as they reached the main hall, and they caught hold of Eithahawn. They pulled him to a fork that took him right, though he protested.

Lusis pushed into them, bundled her hand in a mix of Eithahawn's long waving hair, and his silken coat. "Excuse me!"

An elf closed his hand over her elbow so quickly it was difficult to see.

"Release her!" Dorondir emerged, dark hair saturated wet against his hastily clad shoulders, and throat of his shirt unbound. He hurried to the Ranger band and caught Eithahawn's elbow. "Where would you go?"

"I follow the King," he said to the guard, and the seneschal's hand sightlessly found its way around Lusis' forearm.

That was all that was needed for them to resume their headlong rush amid the bells. Lusis kept close to the Kingdom's seneschal. She only left him when she recognized that they were in the gatehouse of the massive elven Halls through which she'd been brought. She leapt over an elf that crouched to lift up a crying human child in the queue of petitioners. She crashed down onto a _seemingly_ discarded dwarven shield on the other side and it straightened suddenly, an action that vaulted her high in air. She saw one of the fine, filigree light fixtures that dangled on a silver chain closer than she'd ever thought she might, and then landed in front of many of the guard that had gone before her. Her boots barely kept purchase on the marble and she went soaring for the steps.

Best thing to do there was to fold up her legs and allow the motion to take its course. She sailed over the stairs and smacked into elegant wood hoardings at the wall-walk. It hurt and knocked out some of her wind, but moments like these were why she had plate metal sewn into her leather. Now she sought out Redd's legendary Elfking. Her eyes found the closing gates. She didn't see him in the pre-dawn gloaming until he hiked himself off the wall-walk and over the rampart. He dropped to the shallow edge of the river below. Elves followed.

"Do you see him?" Aric shouted from just below her vantage. It was reflex to protect a King.

They were Rangers.

"Gate's closed, we can't easily get up there." Icar called out afterward.

She pointed her blade at the monstrous man who strode through the clot of petitioners with Steed and several elf guards. "Redd, get them up!" Redd reacted by snatching Steed up and practically tossing him at the wall walk. Somehow, Steed seemed unsurprised by this action. Not so for the utterly amazed elf guard who caught him.

Lusis wasn't aware of this. She'd gotten up to leap from rampart to rampart, and then throw herself out in air after the Elfking. Hitting the shallow end of the river rattled her teeth. She was the only human out in the ice-cold current. Elves encircled the Elfking, and he stood with a terrific sword in hand. It was beautiful – worthy of him.

The rising light at the bend in the river… that was _not_ dawn. The Elfking shouldn't be out here to greet it, she bet. Lusis sloshed through the spring run-off with her teeth gritted, and made her way to where the elves stood stock still, their eyes fixed on the river. She only just reached the Elfking when the first detritus flowed down, all manner of ropes, wooden fragments, and many barrels among the general wreckage. And then the first of the bodies.

The Elvenking reached a pale hand and started forward. This was a bad plan. Lusis surged through the water, "No, let me, Elvenking." She barked. She waded out into ice-cold, chest deep water, and caught a floating body with her fist. The spring-melt swelled this river, and its current was strong, and she was pulled along, her feet struggling for purchase until her heel hit a submerged branch. Then she heaved her muscle into it and pulled the dead man from the current. Teeth gritted in the growing light, she walked back toward the elves.

The nearest elf guard caught hold of her. His steely grip pulled her until he could lay hands on the body. They turned it over. Pitifully, it was a young man – just more than a boy. Lusis glanced over his injuries – empty eye-sockets, but no other sign of distress.

She fought through the current for the next man. His injuries were similar. Such a horror those blank sockets. The next three were the same. She raised up her hand from touching one of the bodies and noticed a soft green tinge.

"The bodies are…" she raised her voice, "Take the Elfking to shore! There is poison in the river!"

"Lusis!" Steed shouted from the wall. He had an arrow with elven rope tied to it. It shot past her, lodged in the dead man, and pulled him to shore.

She raised her hands before her, suddenly queasy, suddenly infuriated at the repugnant thought of _the water_ being despoiled. She turned around to look up at dawn slowly cresting elven ramparts, the great blue-stone gates sealed closed, and the guard lined along it. For all their self-sequestration, havoc coursed through the veins of the land down to this peaceful place.

She balled up fists and smacked them against the water around her ribs.

Who dared? She looked into the darkening current.

She took a step and almost ploughed into the Elfking in all his soaking fineries. He sheathed his sword and took her faintly green hands for inspection. It was, indeed, a poison.

"Listen to me, my Lord, you _shouldn't_ be in this water." she began. He released her.

He stared into the water and bowed his head in concentration. But she'd expected him to be persistent in nature. He was a King, after all.

Lusis ducked her head, "Elfking, please _listen_-"

His hands spread in the water, and his deep voice murmured in elvish.

The radiance she'd seen – like that of a candle inside him – increased itself. It spread across his chest and limbs, climbed up into his throat, bubbled into the back of his mouth, and shone out of his lips and eyes. His hair floated, lit up a white-gold, but wherever it still touched the river she saw that the light didn't merely reflect, it also spread out from him, through the water. His words had been soft, but they'd grown as inexorable as wave-after-wave against shore – tides that were as endless as the elves themselves. Then a turning point where the glow flowered out around him like an opening bud. Light encircled him and then rushed through the river in both directions. Exhausted in this place.

And it was blinding. Lusis blinked in the sudden darkness, and clutched the Elfking's hand for balance. When she realized what she'd done, she quickly released him and backed away. The river slapped against her shoulders when she stopped. But she still stared at the tall King.

Though she couldn't see his expression, the Elfking remained still as an effigy.

A throaty roar at her left captured her attention. Her dazzled eyes saw the first of the barges, engulfed in gusts of flame. She scarcely registered what it was before it leapt an outcropping, shoved along by what came behind it, and thrown aloft by the melt.

Lusis remembered yelling, "Go!"

He was quick enough to evade the missile this barge had become.

She dove down into the river. The light of flames above her only guide in this current-torn world of silt and darkness. She kicked and sank down into the deep, feeling branches snag her, suffering impacts with the bottom, with rocks she couldn't see, and the ever-present current hurling her along. She surfaced for a breath of air and had no idea where she was. A tremendous crack sounded behind her. The crunch of wood on stone, and the shouting of elves.

And Lusis went under a second time.

There was a third.

Then she caught hold of the snake-like roots of a colossal beech tree. She sank her fingers into the spaces, and hung on against the whip of current turning her body around. Slowly, at first, she dragged her body upward. Her head cleared the water and she lay panting. Gasping. It was hard to catch her breath in such numbing cold.

"_Aiya_, Lusis Buckmaster!" velvety voices cried out along the river.

She couldn't find her voice to shout back. It took minutes, until they were almost past her, for her to suck enough air to bellow. "Here!"

There was no sound of crashing through bushes or undergrowth, the green bank around her was suddenly studded with Silvan elves. Dorondir, shirt still undone at the throat, caught a branch and leaned out over her. He pulled her out of the water.

She scrambled up to her feet, numb with cold and looked at them.

Then she turned and raced on heavy, chill legs, back in the direction of the gates. What had she heard? Were the elves there safe? Were the petitioners?

Dorondir caught her about the waist and threw himself up into the nearby trees. They climbed upward until they were within reach of the wall.

"Wait!"

He tossed them both at the blue stone ramparts above. A golden-haired elf in green swung out from them and scooped both Dorondir and Lusis to the wall-walk. Elves hurried in behind them.

She could see that the barge had collided with the gates of this place, and fire streamed up toward the trees that bordered the Halls of this kingdom.

Thranduil stood atop the ramparts in the firelight. He seemed consumed by sun now. His hands rose. The river roared up along wreckage like a living thing. Like a pair of watery hands feeling for heat. This repeated until both the fires quenched.

The Elfking's head tipped back in relief. No fires in his forest. No deaths in his Halls today.

The white-hot crucible inside of the Elfking banked abruptly – from star to candle flame – and Lusis, panting and wretched as she was, felt a great surge of loss sting her throat. Lost in this curious world, she missed the inquiries from the elves that flocked to her, trying to judge her wellbeing.

Steed reached her. She stepped around him.

The Elfking tipped from the rampart. He fell in a long graceful arch, and it was his seneschals who caught him, Eithahawn, she saw, chief among them.

They'd been delivered.

He'd saved the river. That meant the groundwater hereabouts too.

That meant the trees, and everything that relied on the water in the area.

Sound rushed in right behind relief.

"Lusis, you're bleeding." Steed turned her head by the chin.

"Give her here!" Redd bellowed from below.

Lusis turned on her stiff, numb legs and dropped herself over the side of the wall into Redd's waiting catch. He, in turn, spun in place and hurried back to the first bailey. "Hurry up, you lot! Open the passageway! She's been in the river, she's cold as ice and bleeding."

But as numb and cold as Lusis felt, she knew the Elfking had just spent himself defending his Kingdom. She would have to wait behind his wellbeing.

The light of the Elfking was reported travelling the length of the river from Long Lake to the Grey Mountains. Its faint evanescence passed down the Anduin until the Old Forest Road, utterly spent by the time it reached the forlorn span of Gladden Fields. It bounced off the Grey Mountains so that its echo rolled to a stop at the gates of the Elvenking's Halls again at midday. The Mirkwood elves paused in cutting away the wrecked barges and floating them down the river to watch the light fade.

Lusis was aware that the Elfking was still recovering from the expenditure of what she figured she could call 'his magic', though it seemed to be more of a raw force from within his very spirit. The King was still in his rooms at noon, which, apparently, was simply unheard of. All around her aching form, officials milled in throngs, conversing in low tones, and the work of the government was down to Eithahawn, the series of other seneschals, or it went undone.

Given the disruption in the citadel, it wasn't difficult for Lusis to slip out of the sick rooms and wander. She stretched to loosen her stiffening body. Elves were fine healers, she felt. She'd have been in worse shape if that hadn't been the case. Eventually, she went outside into the overcast day. The barge pieces were being ferried or carried downstream to an encampment where they were laid out as if the elves might rebuild the boats. But no effort was made to do, so at least not while she watched. And, eventually, put her back into assistance. Though cautiously.

"You should be resting," Icar told her. He and the other Rangers had come to support this effort, though, admittedly, they hardly seemed to understand what was taking place. They'd have as soon chopped the remnants up for firewood and sold the rest as salvage. And maybe that would be the ultimate fate of these boats. But this hadn't come to pass yet.

The bodies had been rescued from the river as well, and she was aware they'd been brought somewhere inside the Halls. She'd heard they were down deeper in chill rooms for preservation. She hoped they awaited identification and return to their loved ones – surely elves understood _that_. She didn't like to think of the families down-river waiting for these boats to bump against the docks.

Instead, they got the ghost lights of the Elfking's will along their river by dawn. It was an omen.

It took three days for Lusis to recover fully. This was a testament to the great power of the elf women who bundled around her bed several times a day to heal her. She was on her feet the second morning, if stiff, and urged to walk the stiffness out of her muscles. This is when she saw how busy Eithahawn was, learned how Dorondir and his like were on constant patrol in the woods, and witnessed the removal of the barges. Her own Ranger confederates had put their backs into the effort. They'd been grave when they'd seen the bodies wrapped in elven fabrics, carried by on ladder-like planks, in solemn procession down into the deeper stores. The elves had sung a threnody for them that she'd heard from her bed. Especially for the boy.

There were some, but not a lot of children here.

Three small children appeared on her bed on the second morning, full of chatter, and _terrible_ at anything but elvish. A little curly-haired girl with huge pale eyes, and the sweetest little face. Her voice peeped. Lusis had hugged her, which seemed agreeable, and then praised her altogether too comprehensive drawing skills – odd for a little one, though perhaps not for an elf child. The two boys were much more active, climbing on things, or tussling on the end of her bed like velvety puppies.

The healer women had been horrified and carried them away for, Lusis thought, a scolding.

On the second day, she felt well enough to join her Rangers at the 'reconstruction' site. She was astonished at how complete the barges looked as they were being laid out. There she met a master-builder named Amondir. He was tall, lean, and handsome with hair the colour of cooked sugar. His eyes were a crisp blue, and he quickly assessed her and assigned her work. She was to move the smaller pieces to place in the puzzle-work of the larger wreckage. If he was able to figure out which ship belonged to which piece, then the piece had a small slip of paper she affixed with a drop of beeswax, and marked with elven numbers.

This was also the first day she ate meat among the elves. There was this delicious fish stew, thick with vegetables, doled out of vessels onto toasty, dense flatbreads that steamed in the predawn air. She ate _three_. Steed and Aric looked like they'd died and gone to the Clouds to live. At lunch they had a simple, but delicious hot meal with hunks of a different type of fish smothered in cheese. They washed it all down with fresh water and some stripe of thick ale.

The elves were very efficient workers. They were so coordinated in their motions, used to each other's manner of work. At lunch they grouped up and talked about the 'reconstruction'. They especially walked along sections where Lusis, and the crew of nimble elves she worked with, reconstituted the most damaged bits.

After lunch, Icar was moved into the crew to help with this. He had an eye for detail.

It was a long day's work. She started at daylight, and worked away under lamps until she lay down beside a particularly tricky piece, and woke up in her bed.

On the third day, she had no more bruises. Her cuts had healed. Her body felt stiff, but hale. She felt ready for the tough-stuff. But she was set to work on the small pieces rather than the heavy work most of her men were doing.

The master-builder in charge, Amondir, told her, "You have a sense for it, friend. Great advances came yesterday as you and your Ranger-friend, Icar, worked with our crew. Your perspectives on human ship-building are a welcome boon."

They particularly liked Redd for the heavy work. Something in elf constitution – maybe because they chiefly ate only plants supplemented, as far as she could see, with some fish-meat – kept them from getting truly burly with muscle. No such limitation on towering Redd. He and Steed, who was used to handling massive horses, were rested and watered most often, along with the largest elves, for they were called on to move the heaviest bits from place to place.

Lusis went where she was needed.

On the fourth day, she'd just reached the site when the candle-bright hair of Eithahawn standing in the gloaming damp of morning, caught her attention. Beside him, further from her, was the Elfking. They stood in the site with several of the elves in charge of various parts of the effort.

She went to her fish stew, relieved that she no longer saw a roaring fire or an oversized candle flame inside his torso whenever she looked at the King.

It was three more days of work before they were done.

The next day dawned. She woke in her bed, very early, to quiet. The spirit of Mirkwood had settled around her. There was uneasy peace of mind. The Elfking had left his apartments and walked – more appropriately, _stalked_ – his Halls again. He was a collection of intensities, Thranduil.

She got up, bathed in the brass tub closest her, then dressed and wondered at the years of her life. Had he haunted the predawn halls this way, since her first breath? Probably since before. He would long after she was gone, and that was reassuring to her.

She tailed him, silently. He was swinging his sword as he went soundlessly through empty halls. Its white steel flicked like the tail of a cat behind him, occasionally making a whoosh as he moved the sword around him. It orbited him. She'd never seen anyone who could join their hands behind their back, and yet turn a sword so expertly. She tried it clumsily, and only just kept her sword from hitting the tiles.

The Elfking turned in place, far before her, looked her straight in the eye, and waited. When she didn't move, he raised a cupped hand and simply tipped his long fingers toward himself a fraction. She'd seen that subtle elf gesture on the reconstruction site before, and it was 'Come here'. If an elf made it with both hands, she'd found that meant you should _really_ hustle.

Lusis minced up to him, painfully embarrassed. She bowed. "I apologize. I was up early and-"

His voice hummed through that furnace-room chest. "If you want to turn the sword, to truly understand it as it moves, you must stop persuading yourself it is _a weapon_."

She looked up at him curiously. His imperious face with that wick of truth behind it. "Why?"

"A weapon is for cutting, hewing, a rigidity for bringing peace through harm and death," his nearly immobile face tipped in her direction. His sword eased between them, a line of silver he held point-down. "A rigidity of purpose. But it was fluid once – a genius of fire, not earth. It would have run through your fingertips. It should be fluid in your thoughts as well."

Then he handed her the sword.

Her eyes boggled. She took the thing. Her first thought was that it was heavy. _Very_ heavy. But he flicked it around like it was made of dream-stuff. She used a lighter sword, and shorter, to very deadly effect, in fact. It was a struggle to even lift this one. She clutched the pommel and got ready to turn it in air. His hand flickered out as she did so. She could feel the sword go from heavy, to weightless, when he briefly stalled its motion.

"This sword…" she turned it again, and felt the muscles in her arm, shoulder, and torso try to get used to the weight, "… is magnificent. And… _weighty_." She offered it back to him.

He took it. The blade flickered in air behind him and lay along his long back. He turned with his silver eyes averted, "The sword is light as vapour. It is the crown that is heavy." He drifted away from her, but then paused because she wasn't following him. A simple look in her direction fixed that.

With elves, she'd come to know, a lot was said without words. The elusive language of their moving bodies was so intricate that she thought it befitted an undying race. To the human eye their faces betrayed little. Only being among them for a time taught her to really mind them. This inarticulation got worse with age. His was worst of all. She could not escape the unsettling sensation that he wore a waxen mask throughout daily life. The words and conversations were elsewhere. Physical. And in looks.

She followed his broad shoulders upward until they reached a place very near the surface. There she passed through archways into broad rooms – what looked like a sitting room with a roaring fire in the center. There were thick pile rugs with scrupulous renderings of spring trees and new leaves on the floors. Long white wood benches padded with down cushions and swathed in furs. She slowed to look at the dome of ceiling.

The lights were suspended from silver chains, lamps mounted on the massive white bones of some beast, though she didn't know what it might once have been. The glass in the lights was comprised of many hues that mixed into a very natural light, like daylight.

At the side of the room, large windows let out onto plum trees and an eddy-pool of river. She could see the constant slow churn of leaves and blooms in the water. Just below the sheer glass there was a long row of wood cabinetry with tiny drawers, like one would see at a high-end apothecary. He went to one and folded down in one glib motion. And he took something from inside before gliding back to her.

"I received this," he said quietly, "from a friend. It has not the power to deliver you. As you see, it's a small and uncontrived thing, like its maker, but there is much virtue and gentleness in it. Even now, it retains benevolence in every part." As he spoke, he also fed a silvery necklace out of his palm. It came through his fingers, silver span by span, flawless pearl by pearl. Lusis' eyes enlarged. The King's voice slowed to a lulling cadence. "Against things that seek to wrench away your power, that sue to suffocate your voice, set this simple chain, cast of a good and worthy heart, the gift of a ring-bearer's resolve. May it give you occasion to breathe freely, to think freely, and be free."

Suffuse lights rotated inside the pearls. The metal seemed blue for a moment. It slithered into her hand like the down of a bird, lighter than a moth-wing.

The Elfking stared down at her palm. He laid his hand over the necklace there. "Wear it in health, Ranger of the North."

Lusis backed away from his touch, from the steady burn inside him when he exerted his will.

She bowed and lifted the fine thing before her eyes. There was no telling how old it was or who had given it to him, but she couldn't contain the honour of having been presented with it by the King. The door behind her tapped.

The Elfking's expression smoothed to waxen cool. His head turned in that direction. "Enter."

Eithahawn came in. He carried a long velvet coat with him, embroidered with vines and birds, deep cherry in colour. The Kingdom's seneschal saw her in the room and paused, perfectly motionless, as horses can be motionless, but deeper, as if even his vessels had been given pause.

Lusis turned and stalked across the room. "Eithahawn, good morning."

"Good morning, Lusis Buckmaster," he laid a hand over his chest and stepped aside for her. She could feel his sea-blue eyes follow her as she minced away. Those were the King's rooms then.

She held her hand up as she walked, and marveled at the necklace. At that moment, walking in the Halls of the Elvenking, she found the thing inexpressibly lovely. Too beautiful for her to wear. Except he'd literally told her _wear it in health_.

So she put it on. He was a big elf, Thranduil, and this would have run down the thickness of his chest. The chain was long on her. It swayed in air far below her breasts, which made her laugh. She doubled it up and tucked it down into her shirt. Nothing proved the Elfking wanted the intelligence she carried like this gesture. He'd thought about how to get it, and his evaluation had come down to the chain. He needed her to unplug her throat, and Lusis wanted the same.

A chain against a rope?

She'd bet on the chain.

_Let it work_.

She plumped her memory for the stories Redd had told her. Ring-bearer. She hoped she was wrong about what a ring-bearer was.

On her thirteenth round of the guest hall's open center, Icar jogged to join her. "There you are! We're all about to head to the, uh, cavern where everyone gets breakfast-"

Lusis glanced over him. He was so scrubbed and proper. His clothes clean and mended. His hair was clipped into a semblance of decency. It made her smile. "Those rooms are the Sunrise rooms. The elves gather there when the weather's bad, so they can see the dawn come over the Lake of Leaves."

He looked baffled, "What's that? And how do you know about it?"

"The Lake of Leaves is what they call the valley in the middle of the Halls. It's full of fruit and nut trees. Edible plants. It's sort of like a breadbasket, seeing as most of the bread is made out of nut flour." She raised a hand in greeting to Redd and Steed. Aric was already picking at leafy greens seeing as, for the first time in his life, he'd been forced into the position of learning to have a preference among them. A tall healer strolled by, carrying the curl-headed little artist girl with her and the little girl bubbled at Lusis and reached for her. Lusis waved back. "And I know it because I asked Eithahawn, the seneschal."

She was surprised to see Redd talking to Dorondir.

"Lusis," he greeted her with his genial face. It was warmer and more mischievous than the expression he used when in formal greetings in the field. She'd discovered that the elf was just friendly.

"Starving," she nodded in his direction.

"I've heard the kitchens have something for our Ranger guests today." The tall elf scanned their faces with his too-pale eyes. They were all so eager. "It is gratitude for your willing help in the last days and for Lusis, who threw herself into the river after the King." He seemed pleased by this.

She nodded up at him, "He's bold. Picking up the bodies is something he should consider delegating in the future. I've seen them set as lures, or traps – full of poison – before."

Dorondir inclined his head to her. "The poison has yet to be identified. It is a good thing that the Elfking's great admiration for the river allowed him to counteract it."

"Oh gods," Aric cried from the outcropping that was known as the Elfking's Table. "There are ham steaks down here!"

Lusis felt a large grin stretch her face and she nodded to Dorondir before she raced down the steps to see if it could be true. In fact, all the Rangers vanished down the stairs to the King's Table in record time. Lusis among them. Dorondir's musical laughter could be heard behind them.

They got down to denuding the platter of ham. It was close to forty minutes of silence, apart from the clank of knives and – for those who used them – forks. And munching.

"I'm not a fan of indoors, and not of cooking indoors either… but not bad at all!" Redd laughed and cocked his head at the slab on his plate. "They cooked it in honey and apples."

"Brilliant," Aric said around a mouthful of ham and flatbread, "every last one of them."

Lusis nodded in agreement. Apple was a bit unorthodox, but it was a very tart and tangy apple, whatever it was. It suited the ham. She licked a finger. "What's happening on that reconstruction site?"

"The Elfking will be going out there today," Icar pulled a face. "I'm supposed to go too."

"Why?" Lusis cocked her head at him.

"I know about ships. I mean… I don't in another sense. Just I've drawn so very many. But they seem to think this is some kind of actual knowledge, these elves."

"It is," Redd reassured the young man. "What an artist knows about the way things should look, that is a special form of knowledge. Relax." He'd read about it in the past.

"The Elfking, though…" Icar looked across at his brother, who was chewing on a hambone. His brother spit it out on the plate and wiped his mouth in his sleeve.

"What are you worried about?" Aric chuckled at his brother. "Don't you think he's a bit fancy to be giving you nerves? He's not going to do you harm, Icar."

"He _is_ intimidating," Steed wiped off in a cloth napkin and was considerably less messy. "Even when he pitched off the wall after he did that… whatever it was, I guess, spell on the river, he looked, I'm not sure how to put it, but it is overwhelming. So. Do I think he could hurt Icar? Fires, he could kill Icar and Icar would take a few seconds to figure it out."

Icar sat upright and looked stricken.

"Do I think he would?" Steed's brows went up. "I think that is extremely unlikely."

He wasn't even twenty years old, Icar. Lusis wasn't much older, but she did feel more experienced than Icar was. She felt for him. He was positively gifted with a sword, like a painter with a brush, but he was otherwise a gentle creature. As usual, she felt she had to help him.

"Don't be afraid of him, Icar," Lusis cut into her third ham-steak. She sucked air and nodded, "When he's staring at you, he's listening. Or thinking. In my experience, he is _not_ trying to threaten you, or, say, burn your eyeballs out of their sockets – which is how I feel sometimes. Uh, when his face shows nothing, he's probably giving you… space to answer him honestly, rather than say something to please him, or so I've noticed. And watch him closely. He's got a lot of self-control. These things other elves do," she demonstrated a low flat-handed motion in air, which she now knew meant 'leave', "they do by accident sometimes, they do it without thinking. He doesn't do things like that unless something snaps."

"I have a feeling if he's angry at you, you'll know it," Redd clapped the younger man on the back. "But maybe you should take Lusis. She's had the most time with the Elfking. She can," he cocked his head, "read him pretty well. And there is the fact he's given her a gift, so she has his favour."

All eating stopped.

Aric mangled the word, "Gift?" around a hunk of ham. Then spit the hunk out in case he needed to say anything further. Which he did. "_Gift_, Lusis?"

Icar glanced. "Brother, she did go in the river to protect him. Maybe he was touched by that?"

"No," Lusis waved the idea away. "It's a chain that will give me a chance against the shadow-rope around my neck. It was a gift given to him once." She tugged her shirt down and let it slide out from her skin. It shone against the dark fabric and proceeded to look whitely bright and extravagant.

"That's… that's a fortune in gold and pearls," Redd told her calmly. "A queen's ransom."

Aric bared his teeth, "He gave you that and you just _took_ it? Are you a _fool_? What do you suppose he's going to want in exchange for that kind of opulence?" Aric threw down the napkin he'd begun to unfold. "_Lusis_!"

"Nothing?" Lusis' brows drew down.

Now Aric rubbed the spot between his eyes and sighed heavily. "You hapless… he's _male_."

She saw what he was suggesting and sputtered, "It's _unthinkable_. I'm not even his kind, and look at me, Aric. As you've pointed out before, I'm a mess. He's a living, breathing, _daystar_."

He just shook his head, "You really are senseless."

"One does not _earn_ a woman like goods, Aric. You don't work hard, stash away your pay, and put it against the purchase of a person's essence."

Aric pointed at her. "Did you tell _him_ that? I don't know if he'd agree."

"I suspect he already knows," Lusis snapped, unkindly. "Given his great age, he probably picked it up along the way. He was _married_, after all. Women don't like being treated like possessions. I doubt he would have gotten away with that. Elf women tend to stand on equal footing, I've noticed."

"She's such a child," Aric told Steed in an aside.

"It's not a gift between a man and a woman." Lusis fumed. She could laugh at the thought, but found she was too furious and made too self-conscious by it.

Aric snorted, "Be sensible! What is he if not first a man?"

"A King," said Redd. "So keep your voice down and don't forget it, Aric. It's a dangerous thing to disregard. But I don't understand how a necklace is going to help in your situation, Lusis, I admit." He leaned forward and stared at the chain. "It's finely made… elvish construction, maybe?"

Well, she wasn't sure about that either. "It's supposed to help me talk about what happened in the shadow of the mountain." But she hadn't tried it. She pressed her hand over its warm weight. Nothing seemed to have changed. But she breathed deeply and tried it from the top. "I was actually attacked outside of the camp we set. You were sleeping, but I was restless that night. Something about the land was bothering me. I felt almost… guided, and so I decided-" She gave a cough and stopped quickly. Her fingers wrapped the necklace.

"That _was_ better," Icar noted.

She stood up.

"Still not great." He rose to catch her by the shoulders.

Blood poured into her face – she could feel it go red. Honestly? It did feel like a noose. She reversed the grip she'd taken on the necklace and pulled outward. The pressure let up. Lusis bared her teeth at the table. She resolved that whoever stood at the other end of this rope was going to suffer.

Her fit was causing a great deal of distress among the elves.

Their cool hands travelled over her back. She heard elves calling out above her. When she managed to sit back, Dorondir pressed a hand to her cheek. The healer she'd seen just moments before appeared and set her little girl on a chair. The tiny elf held very still, her pale eyes watching.

"I'm okay," Lusis gasped and laid a hand on the healer's upper arm. "I'm okay." The noose yanked at her. She fought her way through the discomfort and, abruptly, she could breathe more easily. "I got it. I got through. I'm okay." She couldn't help but grin. The chain worked.

Dorondir set both hands on her bent back and muttered a few elvish words. Then he added, "May we find the one responsible for your torment soon, Lusis, and deliver you from this torture."

She sank into her seat again, and glanced around the table. Redd was up with his sword in hand. Steed had pulled Icar out of the way of the elf healers, and Aric stood, graven. The most unusual being at the table was the small elf girl whose face was very serious. She promptly extended her arms to Dorondir and he picked her up with the unthinking naturalness of a relative. Maybe that was how the elves treated elf children. She tucked her serious face against his neck, but her unblinking eyes followed Lusis alone.

The healer came to fetch her from the patrol guard.

When the room calmed, they returned to their meal. Dorondir departed for his several hours of patrol. None of the Rangers felt terribly hungry anymore, but there was no way they would waste this meat after days of having none. In the end, they wrapped slices of the ham into bread and bound them in napkins to take the rest, and, since Rangers weren't very good at being inside, they resolved to go to the reconstruction site.

The queue to the throne-hall was long as they walked along it for the outside. Several people were sobbing. Lusis glanced over the humans and realized, "They've come down the river from the human towns." She glanced up at the slanting sun on Redd's craggy features, "Relatives."

"The family had arrived." Redd's lips compressed into a line. "May they endure." His head bowed. Likewise, Lusis lowered her head to them as she passed.

They arrived at the reconstruction site to find it empty. This meant that it was under careful watch of the elven guards hereabouts. Lusis had witnessed this studied neglect so often she felt she could never be fooled by the appearance of elven indifference to a place or thing again.

"Lonely, this bend in the river." Icar swished his sword through air and cut a black fly in two. He was really good, Icar. Lusis wondered if he'd stopped thinking of the sword as a weapon, like the Elfking. If so, what did he think it was? She took out her own shining sword and spun it in her hand. She realized she'd begun to think of it as an extension of her will.

They'd come here to help Icar, to give him time to sketch.

It was also a comfort to her when she felt unsettled. She slid it home and looked to the North. She didn't see a single elf nearby. "I want to get a better look at this stuff."

They scaled a tree at the top of the site. Icar got into a comfortable fork and began drawing the barges from the wreckage site, but as they would have appeared when whole. Lusis stood behind him, one hand hooked over a limb above her as she compared his work to the barges below.

Her head tipped to one side. They were so badly burned, these wrecks, but there was something odd about the pair of them that she couldn't quite bring to the surface of her thoughts. She lifted herself up to higher branches and then worked her way down, aware, unlike most people, that even small shifts could cause an artist trouble when drawing, and also aware that a shift in concentration was just as detrimental. She dropped from the tree and into a crunch on the ground, one hand down in the grass, and the other on a knife at her side.

She'd heard something.

It turned out to be the Elfking's procession who swept into the field light as a breeze.

"Don't bother stabbing at us, Ranger," one of the King's personal guards brushed by her. They were fleet, fast, and they didn't bother trying to seem genial or move in ways that humans might not find alarming. They were old. They were hunters. Perfect companions to the King.

The Elfking passed the tree, his hair tucked under an ornate silver circlet, steel-clad, wearing birdwing pauldrons and a long cloak whose shoulders were sculpted into feather-like embellishment. He looked stately and imposing, and Lusis instantly pitied Icar, who was still in the tree, for the armor did _nothing _to make the Elfking seem more approachable. Without the softness of the flowering branch crown, he looked sleek and razor-sharp, something that the steel vambraces underscored.

She followed his soundless greaves and the broad shoulders of his floating cape.

"Are we fighting?" Aric hustled up to her and whispered. "Are we fighting today, Lusis?" He looked excited and uncertain at once.

"I don't know," she exhaled the sudden nerves she felt. "Be ready." She raised her sword above her head and saw the notion strike Steed and Redd at once. They shifted their body mass. Steed took down his bow, at the same time Redd put a hand on his sword.

The Elfking slowed, and even stopped. His head turned a fraction. Lusis knew that meant she was to join him, but she wasn't aware whether that meant her, or Icar. She looked back at the tree-line and scooped air toward herself, waving Icar in.

Then she stepped shoulder-to-shoulder with the King.

"I heard that you had an episode this morning." His voice was subdued. Calm. Or exhausted.

She didn't confirm or contest. "The necklace got me through it. Thank you for your help." She turned her head and gave a small bow at him.

"Stop that," he told her tautly. "Listen to me. You were able to tell your men that the assault happened outside of your campsite, after you felt drawn into the wild. Is this so?"

"It is." She didn't take her eyes off his pale profile.

His straight hair fell across the metal of his fitted breastplate, which made the shape and depth of his upper body so cruelly clear. She wondered if she would be able to see the candle-flame of his life through that steel as she had in the past. An odd thought struck her, that none of the others mentioned the light in him either. Did they take it for granted? The Elfking had no idea she thought of this, and nodded at the wreckage laid out so neatly around him. "You helped to reconstruct this."

"Some of it." She half-turned at the sound of Icar arriving behind her. "Icar and I both worked on the smaller fragments, the parts with the most damage."

Thranduil's tall body pivoted.

Icar shrank back from the Elfking, which, to Lusis' mind, was a very natural reaction to the King.

The Elfking stared down at Icar with the force of a burning sea-wind. It was no wonder that Icar's cheeks reddened. His skin might have peeled away under such consideration. The Elfking's head tipped. "Were you drawing?"

Now Icar stammered, "I… I was. That is what I was doing. Yes."

"The ships?"

"It's true, I was." Icar handed over the leather sketchbook. A guard stepped in and took it. He rifled the pages, his expression utterly flat. Icar wilted back, he glanced across at Lusis, whose chin rose in response, and her lips curved up at the corners. He should be proud of such an aptitude.

"My King. The ships." The guard turned the book and directed it to the King. His pale head cocked. His long hair slid on steel.

Icar stepped in and cleared his throat. "So… this is how it works, here. If you…" he carefully reached into the pages. "If you flip the thin paper down, you can see... how the damage would look if we could just pick these ship pieces up and put them back together again. The shaded areas are the burnt parts." He turned pages. "I've been out here a lot, so I have it from all sides. Here's the stern. Here's the bottom of the boat. I just finished the barge on the right from above. That's here. What's missing… I dotted the lines for that."

The Elfking straightened and turned to take in Icar. He actually looked pleased. "You have your uses, Ranger." And his hair spilled into a flaxen sheet from his pauldron, snagged by the rising breeze that carried it over the book, and elf and Ranger hands alike.

"You purified the river, my Lord," Icar took his hands back and looked at them. His fingers curled, "That was astonishing to witness. And your people have been so welcoming. It made me realize that I wanted to be of use to Mirkwood."

He looked at Icar, "If that is true, we have the same goal. Show me what you know of this wreckage, Icar Awnson."

Amondir stood, quite out of nowhere, along the path they were about to travel. He bowed when the King came to view, and then joined the procession of people along the reconstruction site. Lusis remained in the King's wake, just close enough for his silvery-blond hair to billow out and brush her on occasion. At least that might give him a sensation that his back was covered.

"This is the second barge," Amondir said to the king. "The first is just across the field."

"But there's a lot to be learned from the second," Icar said on the end of that pronouncement. "I think it was disabled in much the same way as the first, but it's less damaged, not having suffered a collision with the great gates."

"This is quite true," Amondir agreed and then gestured at the stern of the boat. "Let us begin."

Now Lusis began to see the world in a slightly tilted manner. A world in which the trace of something stretched back up a chain of postulations and permutations to a specific action, and the absence of something else could prove even more damning. It reminded her of tracking a kill in the wild, or following the papery sign of the passage of orcs over stone. That's what Icar and Amondir were about. But the quarry in this case was much more nebulous, and the signs of passage were obscure.

The Elfking processed this information without a word. He didn't look at either elf or human during his walkthrough. Just the ships. His pale eyes seemed in a reverie.

"-where the man steering the boat would stand. Looking straight back, you can see that this rudder should extend out from the stern into the water and this chain," he showed the king a rusted chain that dangled over the side, "should follow to the rudder for steering." Icar crouched down and tapped the wood that had been placed near the port side, roped off and marked as the stern.

Amondir offered a hand to help Icar up amid the dodgy footing of pieces of boat. "On the ship that collided with our mighty gates, my Lord, that rudder impacted with the riverbed. It took a long time for us to recover it from the water. It was buried deep in the silt and soil. We found that rudder was demolished to an extent that the story it tells is now misleading to us. But it seems we can infer from this one, in its more pristine state, that the chain and rudder there may have suffered similarly."

Icar nodded at Amondir. "Yes, it's the bow that took the heavy damage on the second barge. Both bows are in really poor shape. We wouldn't have much detail on them if the first hadn't smacked the gates, uh, my Lord, but since that wreckage fell into the shallows, Lusis and your other elves were able to get almost all of it over. Some of the second barge is halfway to the sea."

They passed Redd, who bowed to the King and endured a moment of the elf's great blue-silver indifference passing across him. Lusis smiled at the huge Ranger. He feared, nearly _revered_, this storied Elfking. He was pale, quiet, and grave whenever the Elvenking was in their company. She found that kind of wonder sort of endearing in brusque, tough Redd.

"This is the strange part." Icar and Amondir both stooped to the rudder bits. Amondir spread his hands over the wooden rudder pieces.

"Eyelet for the chain on the rudder. It's the anchor-point that pulls the rudder in one direction or another." He tapped the deformed, broken eyelet.

"The connecting eyelet is in normal condition on the stern." Icar pointed out. He lifted a chain now threaded with a black rope and extended it to Amondir. It didn't reach.

The Elfking cocked his head, "Problem."

"Yes," Amondir agreed. "We thought, at first, it fell away into the river. But it's significantly heavy, and wouldn't have floated for long. We raked through the riverbed for it. No sign."

The Elfking dropped to a crouch, his blue eyes scanning the end of the chain. His head tilted and took in the rudder. It was made of hardwood with steel encasing the harder edges, riveted in place. But it was also badly blistered. His expression was empty as he straightened and looked toward the river. He returned his gaze to the elf, and then took in Icar. Impassive.

"This damage is not accidental, particularly not if it occurs in both barges. Was the chain located for the first barge?" It was strange how patient he seemed at the moment. It wasn't a characteristic many would associate with the Elfking. Or so Lusis thought.

"Some portion of it was. It was snapped into several pieces. In fact, it was down to single links in places," Amondir noted.

"Was any of it connected to the rudder?"

Icar and Amondir exchanged a glance. It was Amondir who answered. "No, my King."

"Compare this to the chain from the first barge and report," he told them. "And there are humans from Long Lake in the field, I should tell you."

Amondir shot to his feet with his eyes narrowed in a way that was almost threatening. "If they disturb even a splinter of this thing we've done for them, my Lord, I may have to-"

"Peace." The Elfking told his stormy compatriot. "It is done for us all, Amondir. So should we all be able to review it."

Amondir inhaled deeply, steadied himself and bowed to his Elfking, but greatly this time.

_Temper-temper_, was all Lusis could think to herself. So they weren't made of moonlight, elves.

The humans numbered close to twenty and walked down the field together. Lusis sucked air seeing them coming, because the signs of their woe were like screams after being surrounded by elves as she'd been. She shook herself and began looking for weapons. A soft gesture of her right arm, and Red moved his position out further. She turned her head toward the river bend to their left without moving her eyes off the thronging humans and Aric eased along a copse of trees, nearly lost in his green cloak, ready to flank them. In a crowd, trouble always leads, so Lusis stepped away from the Elfking and put herself in the way of the advance, though the action was understated.

People in pain could be unpredictable.

The people in this procession were led by a handsome and tall man with sandy brown hair and a day's stubble. He was neat, well-dressed, and furious. He came just inside human earshot in the field before he shouted, "What is this? What's the meaning of this? Is this a _salvage_?"

"It is not," Amondir stepped forward and told them with a gracious bow of his head.

The man balled a fist, "I'm not talking to you, _sharps_, I'm talking to the b"ig bloody Elfking."

_Sharps_ was one that Lusis had heard before. It meant the shape of an elf ear and belonged in the same class of increasingly derogatory remarks with _hooks_, for the hooked ear-tips, _fancies_, and _ladies_. She winced when she heard it.

The Elfking's fine-looking countenance had gone to that practiced nothingness, the thing she called his _doll face_, which Lusis hated. That pleasant mask wasn't a comfort. It was chilling. The humans before him began to fan out among the ruins, all the better to be away from him. But they could only go so far. The guard, previously 'ignoring' the field, were now in an extensive line along it from one side to the other, just mere arm's spans apart. Their line extended to either side of the King.

"Are these to be your spoils, Elfking?" The man shouted at the King of Mirkwood.

"No," Lusis warned him as he came upon her.

"Are you to pull all the nails and melt them down for elf armour!?"

The Elfking said back a dry, "Dear me, no, I'd die under such pitiable steel."

Lusis actually looked at him, but Thranduil's inexpression hadn't changed a jot.

"You have no care for these people! You _dare_ drag our boats to salvage – they aren't yours! Isn't the river tithe enough for you, oh King of _Greed_?" the man sucked in more air to snarl at the King. "Ah, but what odds? It's only us humans who died. We all do in time, yes? Human lives are the blinking of lightning bugs in the dark to you! You scarcely see a difference in the world, since one of us is as _trifling_ as the next. Now, no more of your nonsense. I _demand_ that you release these boats to us."

Redd bared his teeth and started forward.

"Don't you dare," Lusis told him, and he staggered to a halt. But in many ways, Thranduil was his King, someone _he'd_ discovered as a child, who had filled up his lonely imagination with a being larger than life. Which, as it turned out, was not a bad description of the real thing. By now _insulting_ the King Redd had found was as tolerable as insulting his _line_.

"My Lord," said the guard to the King's right. "Jan Kasia – Master of Boats. Lake Township."

"I see," the tall Elfking's body scarcely moved. He was like a silver-gilded sculpture, apart from his hair, which flicked about his shoulders coasting on the wind. "You will have your broken vessels, Master of Boats. I have no care for them. But you will get them _when we are ready_ to release them to you, as they were used in an assault on our gates. Your request for salvage is of secondary importance to the Kingdom's needs."

Jan Kasia pulled a face. "Well isn't that shocking?"

Behind Kasia's back, a woman in partial armor retorted. "You have no right to dictate to us."

The Elfking's head began to tip, "I am _King_ in these woods." His tone had taken on the weighty sharpness of a man with whom it was dangerous to wrangle.

Lusis watched until the woman's hand squeezed her short-sword's hilt before she lashed out her sword and shook her head. Her voice was hard, "Lady, this is about to pass from one tragedy into two."

"Girl, put that down," said the Master of Boats, "You're _men_, not _elves_! Know your place."

"I _do_ know it," Lusis snapped. "Do you? You are quick with accusations, but your wits are dull. Why would the Elfking do all this? Why put such manpower into laying out these broken boats with such painstaking care? In a salvage, wouldn't you pile the wood with the wood? The metal with the metal? But they look like boats instead."

"He did it because he wouldn't want to miss anything of value," the swordswoman with Kasia moved around to the front of the Master of Boats, her short sword out between them.

"Don't try her," Icar called out, at once. "Lady, don't try her! "You will fall."

An armed man joined the swordswoman.

"No, that won't help," Icar winced.

Lusis made certain her voice would carry, "He does this because if you want to prevent something from happening twice, you need to understand it once. How does that harm you, I ask you? How does that show disregard for human lives?"

But her words had hit Jan Kasia and cut through his blind anger. He glanced over Lusis, with her sword at ready, yet unwilling to engage the Lake Township guard, and then up at the cold glassy face of the Elfking. And as much as it plagued his ego to do so, the Master of Boats said. "Allar, Carin, stand down from this woman."

"Woman _Ranger_," Lusis told them. "Northern Ranger."

Both the Lake Township guards blinked at her, and backed away.

Silence fell between them. The motionless statue that was Thranduil suddenly turned his head, "Move out the guard. I have no need of them."

"My _King_," said the elf guard. His lack of ease wasn't obvious in anything but the way in which he lingered on the word King. But the elves turned in splendid precision and walked to either side of the reconstruction area. They could cut the humans down with arrows in a twinkling from so close, but Lusis didn't bother mentioning this. It wasn't going to come to that. She was determined.

"I tire of explaining," the Elfking sighed. He closed his eyes for long enough to gather his fading patience, "When I say this to you… choose to _believe_. Like the forest, the river is in our custody. We safeguard traffic upon it."

Kasia bit down on his ire. At the same time, surprised that he felt such blind resentment for the King of Mirkwood, he did air some umbrage when he growled, "Well, you did a poor job protecting it." But he didn't say the angry and insulting things he might have.

"Such a lapse is a… it is an unusual circumstance for my people," the Elfking turned, his long cloak billowing out around him. He took a few steps, hesitated, and glanced backward.

Lusis stepped aside, "You can join him."

The Master seemed surprised. "Carin, come with me. Allar, remain with the families."

"They may come," the Elfking said, "simply mind where you step. It is days of work, to lay these ships out, Master of Boats." The King was very calm.

Lusis fell in behind the Elfking with Carin on her right. Both of them eyed one another balefully. Icar and Amondir walked, with the elf beside his King, and Icar beside the Master of Boats.

"I… I don't understand the purpose of this spectacle," Jan looked at the wreckage beside him. "We lost good men here. It is hurtful to humans to have this on display."

The Elfking stopped to consider the man, "It is our failure." He was blunt. And was clear that the words _cost_ him, and Lusis could hear the whoosh inside her head as the King's wide chest – that bright furnace of his – began to burn with a white-hot ferocity. She imagined the love he must feel for his Silvan elves to so _hate_ speaking a word that conjectured they had failed.

And that he had failed them.

Icar glanced at the man, "The point is to learn what happened to these barges. Let me explain to you how this works. Amondir is in charge of this site," he indicated the dark-haired elf. "The rest of us work under his direction. Please believe me, these barges have been handled with care. We spent days and nights, in shifts, bringing them here, and even the smallest of pieces were recovered. Then we tried as best we could to reconfigure them. In the end we have a record of the damage that was done to them. In some limited ways, the ships show injury over time. We're looking for signs that lead back to the earliest damage."

They walked the boats around with Amondir and Icar giving the full explanation. This was further fleshed out by the Master of Boats. Lusis and Carin forgot their animosity by then, they were both too curious about the findings to think about one another. For his part, the Elfking was perfectly silent. A pillar of white jade. His face was as blank as the face of a mirror as he listened.

Eventually, they all stood by the rudder. Jan knelt and touched the thing with careful fingers. He studied the chain when Icar handed it to him. And then looked up at the mirror-like eyes of the King. "No. We inspect the boats. This one was in _perfect_ working order. It was launched only six months ago, but when I look at this, even the steel on the rudder… it's corrupted. The colours are… wrong. There's blue through this still and purple. It's blistered – bubbles of steel chipping off."

"The barges were burning," Icar explained, "at points parts of the ships left the water."

"For that long? The rudder, and these steel caps are at the lowest point of the boat." Jan told him. "It would have had to turn upside down to burn this badly."

"To blaze intensely enough to burn away the rope and break the chain," the Elfking tapped the chain with the toe of his boot.

Icar looked up at the Elfking for a moment and then dove for the chain again. "But…" he stared at the links, and then handed the chain over to Amondir.

"Discoloured… and the break itself is relatively smooth. This is a slice. But the chain is burnt and warped there as well as if it was subjected to great heat." Amondir also stared up at the King. "But that would mean there was a fire… underwater, my Lord."

The Elfking's face was grave, and his voice was dry. "Yes, it would." He began walking back up the line of humans. They scattered out of his way as he went.

Jan Kasia stood with the chain in his hand, "Elfking. What do you know?" his voice stammered and the chain clanked as he released it to the ground, "For mercy's sake, my Lord. If this had happened further up the river, or closer to Lake Town-"

The Elfking turned in a swish of cloak. "It does not matter _where_ on the river such an atrocity happens, Master of Boats." But he waited with his proud head tipped up, for the rest.

The man tried to marshal his forbearance in dealing with the ageless monarch. "Elfking, if we know what we face, _we_ would be _safer_."

"You know what I know." He paused when he found himself faced with Lusis. She'd been listening too hard to move out of his way, and now he looked at her critically.

She hurriedly stepped aside.

"But that's not quite true, is it?" Kasia nodded in the direction of the white-golden elf. "You remembered something when you looked at that rudder and chain. You saw the damage to the metal and wood, and you heard me say the boat had seen six months of service, and something came to you, did it not?" It was true. The Master of Boats was right.

The Elfking's smoothness melted into something very near a smirk. His head tipped to one side as he observed, "Clever-clever, young Master of Boats. But more needs doing, yet."

"We need to _know_ to be _safe_."

"So you shall." The Elfking turned to face the wreckage. "Merilin, take your section to the banks of Long Lake and encamp in their woodlands. Mind the waterway and passage into Long Lake."

At that, close to thirty of the armored elves on the field stepped out of line, turned, and marched straight off the green, no questions asked. The King stopped beside the thing that had distracted him to begin with. A human woman crying as quietly as she could, into her shawl. She sat in the grass with her hand over an edge of a snapped splinter of railing, no bigger than a hand-span.

"I'm sorry, Lord elf," said the young girl kneeling beside her. She gently eased the woman's hand aside from the charred wood. "Arnuh. That's her son's name. He got in trouble on his first day because he carved it into the boat rail."

The Elfking stiffened, silent for a moment. "We will answer this wrong." He looked to Amondir before he turned and stalked off the field in a cloud of his elf-guards.

The elf, Amondir, took the fragment of railing from the wreckage, wrapped it in a pale green scarf, and handed it over to the grieving mother with a gesture at his chest and out to her. "I am sorry, lady."

She curled her gnarled hand over his, which made Amondir jolt a little, but Icar gave a quiet nod in the elf's direction.

Humans clung to one another, touched one another, more than grown elves did. Humans were spectacular fires that snuffed themselves in terrific explosions of life. And their time was short.

She thanked him, and then released him again. Amondir's elven face was solemn as he rose. He turned to Lusis where she stood with Jan Kasia. "Ranger, this field should be emptied now. To be clear, these ships will be returned to Lake Township at the King's command. Can you help?"

Kasia exhaled pent-up frustration and looked over the wrecked barges, "She doesn't have to."

Lusis was, by the end of that day, utterly exhausted. She could hear the soft sound of crying from the guest rooms across the hallway. The people of Lake Township had been down to see the bodies of their loved-ones. They'd arranged to bring them home for burial. The misery was more than the Rangers could easily endure. They went to the other hall to supply what assistance and comfort they could. It was nearly light when Lusis staggered to her sleeping area. She didn't undress, didn't take off her weapons, she simply sat on the rug and leaned her back against her bed. That was where she stayed until morning.

The warm body beside her turned out to be Eithahawn. He sat on her bed, his long legs crossed at the ankles beside her – elves were tall creatures. He smelled faintly like arnica and blackberries. His eyes were shut, and though she saw he was sitting erect, he seemed to be asleep. She gave his knee a gentle nudge and his head tipped right.

He smiled, quietly.

She nudged him again, and his long eyes opened to take her in. He said, "You cannot have slept well there, Ranger."

"Sleeping on the bare stone flags in this place is better than the thickest blankets in the outdoors, Eithahawn."

Still taking her in, he stretched his back a little. "Then we shall get you elven blankets."

"Why are you napping on my bed?" she managed to get around enough to prop one arm up on the mattress. "You can't have slept well either."

"Sleep?" He seemed puzzled, but then curled up his legs under him. "Forgive me. You see, this was the only place I could find where no one would know to look for me."

Lusis stood up and patted the pillow. "It's all yours." When she looked at him, he leaned on the footboard of the bed. His eyes half-shut.

"I actually came to speak to you, Lusis."

She sat down by the pillows, thought it through, and handed him one. He set it in his lap and sank against the wood post at his back. Beyond him in the horn-shaped hall, the large heater and its hot water made the rooms comfortable. The glow of the fire through slats made his gold hair glow. "I'm listening," she rubbed her eyes and felt the heaviness of her body on her pillow.

"The king interviewed the section head who should have been at the point of the river where the calamity happened. She reported that she saw the boats pass. She stood in plain view of the crew to watch the ships. She raised a hand to hail the captains from shore, but they were in no distress and, for the most part, they ignored her. With no call to be there, she withdrew into the forest to continue her sweep. She estimates it was a mere three to five minutes before she saw flames." Eithahawn's fingers smoothed the pillow case in his lap. He looked at the embroidery and then his fingers traced it.

"Didn't she or her section see anything in the forest?" Lusis asked in confusion.

"Nothing before. Nothing after." Eithahawn still stared at the pillow. "She and her section went for the wreckage. The men were all dead by the time she arrived."

"Three to five minutes to kill eight men and burn two loaded barges."

"Most of the barrels had pressed oil. Flammable." His fingertip traced along a large stag on the pillowcase, rendered in red and crimson thread. The rider was in a gradation of silvers and pale blues with golden hair. "But she heard no cries, just the huff of a fireball. The men were overboard. The barges were out of control."

Lusis looked at the same pattern he traced on the pillow she lay against. There was a long moment of silence as she pondered this. The men died in the first minute to two or three minutes, all eight of them. The boats were on fire between three and five minutes in. No one had uttered a sound.

No normal adversary could do such a thing.

"Jan Kasia, the Master of Boats, reported seeing the light of the Elfking. They didn't know what it was until I told them. The poison hasn't been identified, and the King's light left precious little of it behind. Some was salvaged from the extremities of the men. Far too little to be virulent. We supplied this to the Master of Boats to bring to their apothecaries, lest they know it."

"But the elves don't know it?"

"Not that I know of. Not from the Silvan elves. A courier has been sent to Rivendell with the remainder of the sample we have. We shall see what comes of that." His expression went dim, "I'm sure we shall have a warm welcome from Elrond there."

"People don't like him," she assessed, "do they?"

"It is because he is _exhausting_." Eithahawn's eyes closed.

"Is that why you're so tired?" Lusis got up from the bed and folded her comforter down until she could cover his long legs.

"That is because I haven't slept for days," Eithahawn said. His blue-green eyes opened as he watched this action curiously.

Lusis paused. "It's a human… thing. It's supposed to be comforting."

He blinked a few times, "Among elves, such conduct would imply we are _close_."

Gods, what did 'close' mean? Lusis felt like a foolish child. She released the blanket and backed away. "And we aren't. I'm sorry." She clasped her hands together behind her.

"No, we are not." He agreed with this, "But I would like to consider you a friend."

"I would too. Please forgive me, Eithahawn." She bowed.

"Friends don't often bow to one another." He patted the bed and said, "Sit with me, Lusis."

She sat down on the bed and said, "What now?"

"I'm not sure," he turned the pillow around so that the embroidery faced her. "It seems the King is prepared to go afield to find this thing. He has been in this place since the flames of Dol Guldur faded. He has been in these Halls and forests," Eithahawn indicated the figure on the deer, "and safe."

Lusis brightened, "Is that him? Riding a deer?"

"That is a royal elk." Eithahawn corrected her. But then his fingertips smoothed the fabric and it seemed to have changed some, the top of the pillow looked to be the Halls rather than the woods, with elves within. "I am not trained for fighting, Lusis. Not like you. Not like A Certain King, or his lofty royal son. I am trained to fulfil the purpose I serve now, and I have served since I was a young man. I function well in my role. The King is pleased with my work."

"You must do," she said to him, "the others speak highly of you."

Eithahawn's gaze remained on the pillow, "And now he is riding afield into some danger or… another. That is his role. _First_, he is a warrior King, Thranduil."

She'd never heard any other elf speak his actual name. It was always 'my Lord', 'my King', 'Elfking', 'Elvenking' – what was it like to scarcely be touched by a loving hand, and not hear someone speak your name, for so long? She shook herself. "Something about this troubles you…. You're worried about him. Worried for his safety."

The seneschal didn't move. "He has a son – Legolas, the 'green-leaf' as his name means. This means Thranduil does have an heir somewhere out there in the world. Though Legolas is loath to return here, it is not for lack of love. His father is just so prevailing a force. A nearly suffocating energy. _All-consuming_. He's like fire in a book-room, devouring all, drinking all the air, burning brighter still."

She touched her throat at the nagging thought of suffocation. "Are you worried about the line of succession to this Legolas person?" Elves were confusingly hard to interpret.

"Only in that he loves the fire that is his father, but must be apart from him, and his legacy, to breathe. I do not think he will ever again dwell among us." He shut his eyes as if it was terribly painful to say these words. "I would not dare tell this to my Lord. It would…" now the elf lowered his head and shook it. "But that aside," his green-blue eyes opened, "the Lord is loved here. You will be with him, I suspect, Lusis. I'm here to ask you-"

"To protect him?" she asked the elf. "To safeguard him?"

"To be willing to die for him," he sat up to face her. "As I am. Without a right to ask it of you. But for my people and the Ages – he is a _Sinda_, yes, but he is our _King_."

She looked at him a long moment. "I'm like an infant child fighting with a table-spoon compared to your Lord." She chuckled at the comparison, "But, Eithahawn, I have risked my life for peasants and nobles since I was a young woman. You don't have to _ask_ me to do this. It's what I do."

He nodded at the pillow whose pattern had returned to the embroidered elf and his massive bull elk riding in the forest. He seemed terribly grateful.

Lusis smiled at him, "You and the Elfking _are_ close."

"No. No one is close to him." Eithahawn's brows went up. "Not even his son. And I am no great son of the Elfking, but my father was also one of the Sindar, and the young Lord's friend. My parents were warriors. First, my father, and then, my mother, fell. I was alone. My Lord raised me from early days."

Lusis' smile wilted. "I see." She got to her feet and walked even with his shoulder where she settled a hand on his silken clothes. Lusis looked down at his bowed head. "Then I swear to you I'll protect your father. And you. Now stay here and get some rest, Eithahawn. He will need you sharp." She lifted her hand and walked out of the hollow that was her assigned guest room. She headed down the trio of stairs thinking about how it felt, what it must be like, when your sensations said, in every part, you were a man's child, and he had forgotten to be close to you, to see you as a son.

"And… and also me?" he called after her.

"We're friends now," was all she said in reply. He had no sword of his own so she would protect him as she protected all innocence. Or tried to.

She went to visit the people of Lake Township. She bathed with the few women who were awake over there, and listened to their plans and needs. She dried and dressed, and checked on her sleeping men.

Redd was heavily asleep, half-dressed and with a sword beside him. Icar had fallen on his bed fully clothed after the stress of his day. Only Steed and Aric had made it to bed properly. Eithahawn curled like a cat at the foot of her bed, a fortune in brushed and pearl-seeded silk fanned around him, off the bed and onto the floor. Maybe it was expected of a Kingdom's-seneschal to wear clothes with silver and pearl tracery, or maybe the King actually _did_ care for his vassal-son more than the seneschal knew. In any case, he was soft-faced and eternally young, and his golden hair fell around the pillow in a maddeningly even pattern of buckling waves. His head was cushioned beside the embroidery of his King.

It was light out. The Elfking was abroad by now, either in practice with that silver tongue of flame he called a sword, or at the work of solving the puzzle threatening his people. Lusis settled the life-giving necklace on her neck.

She'd made a promise. There was no time like the present to begin living up to her word.

The Elfking was doing just what Eithahawn feared.

He was organizing for a journey.

In fact, the Master of Boats, Jan Kasia, was with him, and they were talking about general conditions in the wood to the North East. There were a total of seven roads that were frequented by people passing out of Lake Township. Only two were acceptably passable this early in the spring. A mix of snow melt, flooding, and snow pack made the others undesirable for any kind of journey, while the two that could be traversed were still a difficult proposition. Elf woods _grew_, it appeared. With so many Silvan elves in this place, the spring meant heavy growth.

"It's a wonder we're not cursed for that as well," The Elfking mused coldly.

"You won't hear anyone complaining who has a field growing between here and the Lonely Mountain," Jan shook his head. His mood around the Elfking was much improved, though they were still very stiff around one another. And very blunt. When Jan had realized that the elves had recovered all the crewmen from the wreckage, and then bound them in cloth, and preserved them for their families, things had gone more smoothly. The elf who cared for the dead – a truly aged Silvan woman who looked, of course, no older than Lusis – had offered to insert glass eyes for the humans, seeing as their own were missing.

The offer still stood.

"About the Lonely Mountain," the Elfking glanced up from the map he lounged beside, his hair falling in a shining pool over East Bight, "How is the distribution of wealth proceeding?"

"Well enough. It will take generations to clear it out. Management is down to the Dwarves and Men together," he paused. "I know some of your people died in that battle. But the rumour has it you have only a trunk of emeralds and a handful of smith-worked white gold and diamonds for your losses. You should have a greater share."

"We have what was agreed upon," the Elfking exhaled. "Trust that I do not deceive my people." He bristled a little, but then smoothed out like a large white fox. "I have heard rumours that there are men flooding into the area. That the existing towns are expanding, and new communities – some lawless – are being founded."

Jan nodded, "Yes, they call it a gold rush."

"Hm." The King considered aloud. "There is some risk to us in that. If the gold travels by river, then there is _abundant_ risk of attack."

"But if we moved it by river, the tithe would be much larger." Jan said uncomfortably.

"Indeed, as suits the material being shipped and the security required," the Elfking reclined. "My, my, how are you all making out shipping it to the rest of the world by way of those roads?"

Like any King, Thranduil was aware he was being cheated at every opportunity, but it wasn't often he had occasion to inquire to the man at the top of the racket about it. Now Jan Kasia blanched. Then his brows drew down. "Who's to say… maybe you attacked the barges. And it was you looking for gold-"

"Who slammed them into my own gates and nearly set my woods on fire? That is much more likely than an ambush by those of your new neighbours smart enough to know it is both easier and safer to get the gold from transport, than to go into the Lonely Mountain," Thranduil elaborated with a flippant hand gesture, "Carry on – you were saying?"

The man gave up with a sudden exhalation. "Lake Township is about to build a library, and there are plans for two schools and an amphitheater, and several projects are underway in Hale's Mooring, many more than we can boast, and they have no intention of using stone from Hale's ruins – it's a shrine to those people. The river is about to see a rise in traffic. Some of that is getting the payment out, Elvenking. Getting it out safely."

"It must be." He nodded in the sunlight off to his right. "That might be assured with a section of elves to escort you to the Greylin, but _not_ inexpensive."

Jan tipped his head to one side. "How much, do you think, to get them to escort us to Minas Tirith? A long way, and a long journey."

"No journey is long." The Elfking replied without looking up from his map. "Just costly."

Now Jan Kasia actually smiled. A harsh and unreasonable Elfking, well, that was a demoralizing and infuriating difficulty. But an ice-cold King who was all business? _That_ a man could work with.

Lusis had taken position among the elf guards in the room, and found herself watching closely.

A moment later the Elfking said, "Lusis, are you feeling up to riding out?"

"To do what, my Lord?"

"To go hunting."

Odd. They hardly ate _meat_. "Whenever you're ready." She said.

Jan glanced over her curiously. "You're really a Ranger? The men don't mind you?" He laughed.

She didn't. "The men who mind me? I change their minds."

The Elfking rose and smoothed his cloak beside him. "With care, Master of Boats, unless you mean to become the Master of Bruises. _No_ Ranger is weak in the North."

But he couldn't help the grin on the end of this sentence. "Don't they find you distracting? I mean, what do you _do_? I just think the Rangers would not _allow_ a woman among them. That's all."

The Elfking was now beside what looked like an armoire in white wood, but turned out to be more of an armory. Rack on rack of beautiful and terrible weapons hung inside, and on the doors he opened, short and long elven bows. Nothing could have been more apt, to Lusis' mind.

She felt elf-like in her slow turn to face the human man. "Tell me, Kasia. Exactly who is going to prevent me from doing as I please?" She stepped out, as long, solid, and honed to deadly sharpness as any weapon in the room at that moment. He had a woman guard and should have _known_ better.

Kasia's smile wilted.

Now the Elfking strapped on his sword with an expert hand. "Humans," his brows rose. He returned to the collection of weaponry to select fighting knives.

The Master of Boats couldn't prevent a smile, "You have a comment, Elvenking?"

He strapped throwing knives over his chest and raised a restraining hand to the guards around him that seemed eager to poke Jan Kasia with their spears. "Some things seem to be beyond men."

In fact, one of the human guards, Allar, had appeared at the door of the Elfking's map-room. He bowed, sketchily, to the king, as if not sure how it was done, and then spoke to the Master of Boats. "They're up and asking for you, sir."

Kasia glanced in the Elfking's direction and inclined his head. It was a concession to the authority of the proud old elf, at least. "Excuse me, Elfking."

Thranduil's long hand flicked in graceful dismissal. He didn't even look. Once the humans were gone, he glanced at the elven guards. "Leave us." He considered a moment and added, "And, alert Rochiril that her section may be called to escort men to Minas Tirith in the next months. Make certain she and her daughter are prepared for this eventuality."

"Yes, my Lord," an elf woman of the guard said in reply.

Lusis began to head out of the room.

"Lusis," the Elfking's tone was quiet with authority.

She paused.

"You are the other half of 'us' to which I was referring. Remain."

"Oh," she shuffled back in. "I didn't mean to cause problems between you and Mr. Kasia."

"By all means. We are born of the same light – men and elves – thus roughly half their number are daughters, are they not? Perhaps they would be further along if they did not reckon their own kind as one-half a lower form of life." The Elfking just sort of smoothed the branch crown out of his hair and set it on the map table. And there he was, almost an elf like any other, with no hardware on his head. "Aside from which, his discomfort is of no consequence to me."

"I see," she reevaluated him and nodded. Things were different among the elves. A person's true skill, the thing they were born to do, was what it was.

"He is being truthful – it will take many, _many_ human lifetimes to move the gold out of the Lonely Mountain. But he is not confessing that the human settlements have had an increase in criminal elements and activity since the fall of Mordor. Many of the new Northern towns are a law unto themselves – there is much work for you. However, there is no chance that these barges were ambushed by men."

"Not unless they can noiselessly kill eight, pluck their eyeballs out, and set fires underwater." She nodded, "In under three to five minutes."

"I see we are in agreement." He reached across the map table and pulled her sword out of its sheath so fast she scarcely saw it coming. She reached for it belatedly. "No." he said. She avoided cutting her fingers on her own blade, narrowly.

He checked her blade and then replaced it with one of his own which was of the same general size and shape. Then he tossed her sword in air, testing its weight, and it turned over into his hand. It was light in his fingers, like a knife.

Lusis watched it travel. "And it will be okay if I leave it here, my Lord? And the crown just-"

The Elfking cocked his head, concerned. "You think _my_ subjects are thieves?"

"Uh, no, just… maybe organizers of things who… can't stand to see, say, a _random_ crown just-"

"Thieves who have some use for the Living Crown of the Elfking of Mirkwood and a Ranger's sword of only moderately decent steel?" He was highly amused, she could tell, because his cheeks dimpled slightly.

"It's a _very_ good sword!" she fired back at once. And then stopped and gaped in dismay.

He turned the sword in his hand, fast. "I'm sure it is." He took no offence. In fact, his expression dropped to one of keen curiosity. "Now, I will hand this weapon back to you and ask you to lay it on the map. Think carefully."

She looked the map over, reached up, and immediately cupped her fingers around her throat. Her gaze darted up to his blue-silver eyes, their pupils in a soft, nearly catlike oval, something that made his stare even stranger. His face was that pleasant flat nothingness.

First she set the sword onto the map table – on the bare wood of it, which had been etched with fire, so that Middle-Earth as she had _never seen it_, stretched its surface. "Is this of a scale?" She marveled at it.

"Yes," he said and he set his hands on the high North to bend over the table. "These marks, here," he indicated what looked like small bolts, "Indicate where a distance is shortened and by how much." The Elfking waited.

She stared at the North and tried to reorient herself, "Where are you from on here, my Lord?"

"It's not on _this_ map." He indicated, and she bent over the table and reached.

He was from off the map. That suited him _perfectly_. Lusis explained, "I was found here." Her fingertip came to rest on the mountain chain between Carn Dum and Mount Gram, near where the Grey Mountains escaped the Misty. "One of six babies exposed on the mountain on a spring night. A fur trader heard someone crying in the darkness. Only I survived that night, in the end."

The Elfking heard, processed, and had to exhale the pressure of knowing this. Elf children were a rarity – she'd come to understand that – and it was like when the Mirkwood elves had brought the boy's body into the Halls and there was great distress amongst the elves. Children were _sacrosanct_ amongst them. Life was _sacred_.

"_That_ makes _this_ ironic." Lusis caught the necklace in her hand and moved the sword along the table's surface. She made a small grunt of discomfort as the noose drew up its slack, but she stayed calm through the rising suffocation. She pushed through the sudden black spots on the edge of her vision, and trusted in the white gold and pearls, imbued with power – the Elfking's goodwill, and someone else's. The tip of her sword tried to veer. She shook out her hand. "I can come no closer."

She knew she sounded throttled.

The Elfking's brows rose. He first looked at the whole table. He looked at the lay of the sword on the map, inhaled deeply, and then let the breath slowly out again. He moved it, slightly, and watched Lusis shake her head and set it back to rights. He made another adjustment, this time at the pommel and she quickly returned it to the original position.

"I see," he said. Then he murmured, "And the tip is in Framsburg and the ruins of the Éothéod among the ancestors of Riddermark." His pale eyes darted and found hers above the wood map. It was like looking into the eyes of a massive white cat. A wild thing.

And he was correct. She never told people about the ruins. That place was full of private memory, for one thing, and now something sealed her new story inside of her. Now she shut her eyes in relief that someone, someone with a very long memory of the world, knew where this had all begun. "Is that what those are?" She managed. "I never knew. They were just stones to me."

The King's roving attention abstracted to elves in long dark robes on their way to see him. Finally finished arming himself, the King took a silver filigree circlet, complex in its design, from a case at the bottom of the armory. He slipped the silvery thing onto his head adeptly. He could do it one-handed. "Go, Ranger. I will send for you when the time comes."

She bowed to him. "Yes, Elvenking."

But Lusis fairly skipped down to the guest rooms. Only the presence of the Lake Township families prevented her from bursting in with whoops and hand-clapping. She passed Jan Kasia, threw a sympathetic look to Carin, his woman guard, and then made her way to her own soaking troop.

"So, there are things we can do together, and things we can't," Redd said tensely. "Lusis."

"I could get used to this elf-cave though," Icar beamed. He was using the tub out of her line of sight, and sounded quite comfortable. "I didn't do too badly with the Elfking, did I?"

"Told you it would be easy for you," Aric surfaced from the pool he was curled in.

"You did great," Lusis told him. "Your work with Amondir was really critical, Icar. Seriously, I'm not always sure that you're cut out to be a Ranger, when I see the way you think about things, but I'm glad to have a generalist like you aboard."

"Icar likes all the weapons," Steed droned, and then yawned. "Where have you been?"

"To see the King."

"Really?" Steed began to grin, "That's interesting, seeing as you have _the King's man_ sleeping on your bed. That must have been one hell of a conversation."

No wonder everyone was speaking so quietly!

Belatedly, she checked. Eithahawn was still there, and still solid. "He's been awake for days. I think he was at the end of his rope when he came to see me." She ignored the sloshing of water behind her and said, "He's a good man, Eithahawn. Overworked though. This is one of the only places he could think of where no one would think to look for him. So don't say a word. And don't let on to the people from Lake Township. Let him rest."

"You found yourself another baby-bird," Icar said from one of the brass tubs.

Redd came into her sleeping area, his hair damp, but at least he was dressed. He covered the elf in one of the blankets that had been folded at the foot of his bed. "That'll make him harder to see, and more comfortable." Redd's rumbling voice was quiet. "Are you thinking of adding an elf to our band? I've never seen an elf Ranger, but I imagine it would be terrifying."

"He doesn't live by the sword." She smiled at the ripples of hair and smoothed one against the wood of the footboard. So silky.

"I don't understand men like that." Aric complained.

"What?" Icar pulled a towel around himself. "Men of peace? We should be grateful for them."

Steed just got up naked and prowled to his room. Lusis didn't care. She'd seen the sideshow before on the road, many times. Aric leaned around the oven and pointed at her, "I insist, if you're going to adopt an elf, you get one who's good with a sword."

"_Done_," she stepped away from her bed and went to lean on the sculpted cavern wall between her room and Redd's. She glanced at Redd when he came to rest opposite her.

"What baby bird would that be?" Redd asked.

"Big one. Big silver sword he lashes around so fast it's like a snake's tongue."

Heads poked out further up the hall.

"Blond? Large wooden crown full of cherry blossoms? Know him?"

Steed stepped out of his room, now dressed and hunting for his sword. They'd set up one of the empty rooms as a cleaning station. The weapons got a good inspection and cleaning there daily. Steed also used the space for making his arrows. "You're an idiot."

"I'm not kidding," she told them. "Pack up. We're going on a hunt with the King. While we're there, we're watching out for him. Understand? Nothing happens to him on our watch."

Aric came from his room pulling on his boots. "I doubt he'll need us."

"I'm aware of that," she told them, "but we'll be a failsafe, understand? Anyone with a different opinion should tell me now."

Icar swung up his sword. No one spoke. "Pack up. Quietly. When he calls, we will be ready."

"Kings." Aric exhaled at the end of the hall, "A spoiled race, Kings." He groused.

"You'd best keep that to yourself," Redd mused, and then thought aloud, "I wonder about Queens. The books said he had a wife and son, but he seems alone now."

"Fitting fate for such arrogance as he has," Aric packed up without complaint. They were all eager to get out of doors again.

Redd actually barked with laughter, which was very unlike him given the mourners next hall over. The elf seneschal stirred in his sleep, but did not wake. The huge warrior lowered his voice at once and told Aric, "If you share the flaw, Aric, do you deserve the same fate?"

The young ranger looked up suddenly, startled by these words.

The Rangers had their packs together in under fifteen minutes. They went outside and got the feel of the weather after that. One had to become _hardened_ to weather over time, and even a short interval of living inside made changes in that state. But it was a solid five hours before word came, and by that time, the Rangers had made their way back to Mirkwood's Halls to assist the people of Lake Township. They were leaving, ferrying the dead to the barge they'd anchored against towering beech trees in the deep water of the Forest.

Lusis helped to bear the dead to the barge. They were cold and stiff, like early spring air in these parts ought to have been, now that the muggy and unseasonable fogs had fled. She helped to lay them out on the cold bow of the boat and checked their wrappings with care – fine elf silks in leaf green, tied with thin white rope. Once they were all laid down, the head of patrol who was about to go on his tour came down to the barge's deck with a trio of elves, and they spread a long white sheet over them. They carefully tucked this around all the bodies to anchor it. Then, stood and laid their hands on their breast-plates, finally extending them down over the dead in salute.

They departed the ship in silence, their brave eyes downcast.

This, they felt, was very much their failure.

The section coming in from patrol stood along the shore with the elves departing. All bowed to the people of Lake Township before they advanced, half for the Halls, and half for the woods. After that demonstration of regret, Lusis and her Rangers bowed as well, and left the barge.

She glanced up at the huge stone gates to Mirkwood and saw that Jan Kasia stood on the wall-walk in the company of the Elfking. They exchanged a few final words before Jan Kasia sketched a bow at the Elvenking, which Thranduil met with a nod of acknowledgement. Lines of soldiers stepped aside for him, and the Master of Boats made his way down the steps which reached the wall-walk.

Amondir detained Lusis as she headed inside. "Rangers, you ride out with the King." He said this with a clear air of pride.

"We just need our packs," she told him, and then smiled up at the tall elf. "Also, a thanks and well-met, in case this is where our ways part."

His head ducked. "One hopes that is not the case. Now, come with me."

The Rangers had experience listening to and following Amondir. He brought them inside.

Eithahawn was inside a room just off the wide gatehouse entry. He sat on a bench beside their bags, as if he wished he could travel unseen, among them. His expression was pleasant and absolutely inert – the first time Lusis had seen him shut off his nerve-endings as the King did. She deeply disliked seeing that agreeable blankness on his face. And she slowed before him, his expression was such a pleasant fiction. Her men took the bags. She laid her hand on the belts of her own, but then bent over the shoulder and golden waves of the Kingdom's seneschal and whispered, "I promised you."

His head bowed.

She squeezed his solid shoulder and lifted her bag. As she turned and walked into the light, she pulled out the elven blade the Elfking had given her, and spun it around her hand. It distracted her from her sadness for him. But she remained grim even as she waited among the noiseless elves marshalled outside in the crisp spring air.

She asked Redd, "Do I really collect little birds?"

"Well…" he rocked heel to toe. "Aric was pneumatic when you met him, and Icar going hungry, trying to care for his brother. I remember we spotted Steed walking for the Weather Hills across the wide-open barrens, fighting with pain, left to his own devices with a broken arm." Redd looked down at her and smiled, "And I had no friends."

She continued to stare at the departing barges. "Impossible."

He set a hand on her back, right below the necklace at the back of her neck. "Possible" He patted a moment and then said a quiet, "He'll be all right."

She looked up at the King as he descended the wall-walk and didn't know which one she was more care-torn about anymore. "He will be. And I promised he would be."

"Well then." Redd released her and looked at the Elfking. "I've never met anyone more serious about a friend."

The wind came up. Birds jetted over it like falling stars.

The King's hair swirled around him, light as down.

When the barge was gone from sight, forlorn tower bells began to sound. The elves stood thinking their long thoughts, remembering their own fellows, their own loved-ones, now in the Undying Lands, and they eventually drifted into the Halls.

The King stood and watched the gates shut. When they were closed he found the Rangers waiting with a small number of elves. His gaze simply locked on them. Armoured and ageless, he passed them by in an airless moment.

Icar properly interpreted this as, "We should follow."

They did. And when they emerged in a lower part of the Halls, they found themselves in stone stables, with horses waiting. An elven woman held out the stirrup for her, and Lusis leapt aboard. Horses were a rich-man's way to travel. Almost everyone walked or ran from place to place.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Red get aboard a large silver horse with a white face.

Steed was on his horse before the elves had a moment to steady it. He turned it in a tight circle and thanked them with a nod of the head.

"Like a man of the Mark," one of the elves said approvingly. "Care for them well."

"Lusis, hurry." Icar spoke with quiet wonderment, "Come here."

She turned her horse and urged it ahead. Then her hands fell quiet on the reins.

The King had passed through the stable and into a deep green arbor thickly shaded by the spreading limbs of green trees, all covered in moss. He stood waiting in the wood-glow and a _huge_ red elk made its way to him. Everything about it was great. Its ruddy body, its burly neck, its legs were thick, sound, and ended in such beautifully balanced, cloven hooves. It cleared the screen of trees.

Its antlers were _mammoth_.

It reached down from its great height and pressed its head to the King's chest, the fork of small tines at its forehead clattering on elven steel.

Whatever the Elfking said was lost. He stepped around the side of it. Reached a hand into the thick ruff of its neck, and bounded aboard. This looked as easy as jogging up steps. Lusis looked across at Icar, wide-eyed. "You can draw that for us later."

Icar grinned. "That's a challenge."

The Elfking's bull elk snuffled a tree limb of cherry blossoms.

They set out. Five Rangers, a trio of elven personal guards, and the King of Mirkwood.

They rode along the banks and the shallows of the river, just out of sight of the barge the people of Lake Township had set off in. This explained the need for the Rangers and King to travel via horses. Or bull elk. As they passed over a buckle in the stone hereabouts, the river current became faster than they could've run along the shore, and with the stars out and the moon high, the barge made its way even through most of the night. At some points the ship outpaced the horses used to tow it. When the barge was at its fastest, there was no need for horses on the shore at all, and they were taken aboard.

The Forest River itself was a puzzle. Its headwaters in the Grey Mountainss fed it, but so did the run-off from the highlands around Erebor. Due to the rolling geography of the land through which it wound, it could fold slowly downward along its length, only to ease back up again and head toward Long Lake. This made the water subject to strong convection in places. Its course passed from indolent to brisk, according to the underlay it ran upon. It was no more inclined to be one way or another than the mind of the man its guardians called King.

They made camp only when the barge reached a second tie-up. The first evening, no camp was made until after the height of the moon, and the Rangers and elves had reached a thick, wild growth of wood, full of the croaks, rattles, and chirrs of unfamiliar creatures.

The woods were dense and thick with life, and it was a simple thing to get lost in them. The Rangers were careful about where they set things down, and marked common paths from and to locations with white nicks in the trees.

Their camp was staggered. The Rangers were along the foot of a hill, close to the water. The King and his elves were in a hollow just below a large outcrop that overlooked the Forest River. This wasn't an intentional separation. The Rangers had scouted their own best location for defense, escape, and sleep. It was different than what the elves found ideal. To the Rangers' eyes the lush tree growth by the top of the hill was nearly impenetrable, exposed to greater fire-risk, and harder to defend.

"It's the trees," Icar whittled wood, since it was too dark to draw and the fire was too small to give much light. He sipped spruce tea from his cup. "They feel safer in the trees."

"Funny," Redd speared some of the elven flatbread over the fire to warm it. It took on some of the smell of the dry wood they'd carried out of the Halls with them. "If my books are right, the Elfking is a city boy. Sinda from the First Age, yes? Not a Silvan. Their ways are different." He also had a full flask of honey that he used sparingly to tip onto the dry fruit-and-nut mix the elves had packed into their saddle bags. He crushed it into a paste and scooped generous amounts onto each steaming flat of nut-bread.

"Not after so long, I suppose," said a voice from the dark. One of the elves emerged from shadows. She was one of three Elite guards the Elfking had brought, and they weren't known for their warmth. This woman looked as young as any elf, and she was rare among their kind, her hair wasn't in the range of reds, golds, or warm browns, it was very nearly black.

Her eyes, in contrast, were a crystalline blue that looked nearly colourless. Her name was Nimpeth. They knew that much. She folded down on the moss beside their fire as if her joints might be greased. She made next to no sound, this one.

She began unfolding a packet wrapped in thick cloth.

"Like his father, my Lord was invited to rule. Unlike his father, he had long ago adopted our ways." She unwrapped the bundle and set it on the edge of the fire. "_Lachnath_. Flame cloth. When you live in trees you also learn to weave metals and materials that prove difficult to burn. It keeps fire from flesh." She glanced back into the darkness at a change in the rustling there.

Aric had stopped pruning the nearby brush for wood and kindling they could dry and came back to the gathering. "What's the smell?" Steed looked uphill from his shadowy watch by the river.

Lusis swallowed hard at the smell of spices, "I believe… Nimpeth brought some dried meat."

Icar smiled at her. "Thank you so much, Lady."

"Compliments of the Elfking," her lips compressed at the pong of cooked meat and waved the scent away. "Enjoy it if you can."

"Oh, I can," Aric snatched up a piece and tucked it in his cheek. "Dried meat. Delicious!"

Nimpeth got to her feet and Lusis hurried after her. One thing she'd learned was, as fast as a normal elf was, the Elite Guard did that and better. They were honed and seasoned warrior elves. Deadly with many Ages of war. And they moved like the King did.

"What are we hunting?"

She pivoted in place, a peculiarly elven motion that looked dreamlike. "What does it matter?"

Well, it mattered a lot if you, say, didn't want to die of a total lack of preparation. "I would like a straight answer, Lady Nimpeth. Please."

The woman's chin rose and her reply was a chilly, "You may ask him yourself." Then she darted up into the trees and, like a black crow, vanished along the branches. Lusis staggered back with her sword out, purely from shock. She'd never seen _anyone_ move like that.

"That woman is really going to make me walk up this forsaken hill and look for their bloody camp?" Lusis' teeth bared. She glanced over her shoulder and headed up the hill in spite of the meat. There was enough for a couple of nights, and Redd would save some for her. She rooted through trees in the pitch dark, dead tired, and in a foul mood. "Probably they've erected a couple of stone towers for the night. Knowing elves. Oh, and they've build a bathhouse for _a Certain King_ for morning. They're sitting around plaiting one another's gorgeous hair. And His Nibs is probably in the midst of a four course meal-"

The elf camp was small. Much smaller than their own. The fire was at the bottom of a depression surrounded in cut pine-tree limbs woven into a half-circle. It was warm. Nimpeth didn't look up from the rounded metal cup of vegetable stew she heated on embers pulled from the fire.

"Hello again, Ranger."

"She's noisy." Amathon's cool voice drifted from overhead. He lay with his dark auburn hair dangling down, having made a kind of platform-hammock of pine boughs along two stout branches. The fire-heat rose up from the crescent and directly onto him. He rolled to his stomach and looked down at Lusis with his cat-green eyes. "Nimpeth, did you give her the spiced meat?"

"_Mai_ – yes." Nimpeth smothered a smile.

"Then why is she _here_?" he teased.

"Where is the Elfking?" Lusis growled. It was going to be pretty hard to guard him at this rate. "How is it you're comfortable letting him out of your sight?"

"Do you see Ewon among us?" Nimpeth moved away from the cups of stew and poured a spare cup full of steaming drink. It smelled divine. "Here, Ranger. Calm yourself."

Some kind of floral tisane. Lusis took the cup and asked again, "You said I could ask him, Nimpeth. _Where is he_?"

The elf woman's dark head tipped toward the top of the hill, or maybe the taller trees. "Up."

Grumbling, Lusis made her way, carefully, up the hill. She sloshed some of the tea on her fingers, but was inured to small hurts. At the top of the outcropping the trees had been cleared away. The Elfking leaned against an ornately carved stump. He was entirely swathed in a dark red hooded cloak of velvet. His knees were up, arms around them. He watched the barge below, and the humans setting up their wood and wool shelters on the deck. She noticed the older woman the King had met in the field ignored all offers of food and water. She didn't try to sleep or seek shelter. She simply sat beside the bodies and stared into space. That much was visible from the lamps on the deck.

Lusis crouched down and offered him the tea she'd been given.

The Elfking took it and set it among the roots beside him. "Honey tisane," he told her.

She didn't care. All that mattered was that her hands had been freed to run over the smooth white stump of the tree. It was engraved with a multitude of curlicue beeches and horses with elves on their backs. The top of the trunk had been carved with a spiral of elvish.

"My King… what are we hunting?" she asked in a distracted way.

"Whatever hunts us," he made a small and graceful shrug of his shoulders. "Aside from that, I cannot tell you what I do not know."

"You have a theory, though," her finger smoothed the antlers of the bull elk on the stump. She'd both expected and found it.

"You would like me to speculate. I'm not often asked to do that," his fingertips hovered in the steam from the tea. "But the problem in this case is that the evidence is too broad yet. I have theories, but…" small hand gesture that meant nothing to a human. "Aside from which, Ranger, speculation leads one to hidden assumption, and that can put a mind at ease. When the evidence at hand contradicts, we must be alert."

In other words, he had several theories, and she wasn't going to be privy to his short-list.

She focused on something more concrete. The graven tree stump whose surface was so faintly gritty and yet strangely even. She began to realize that it had been coated with resin and carefully sanded down. "What is this for?"

"Watch-points are engraved so. Patrols check them regularly. A lost traveler or one in desperate circumstances need only remain with one a half a day to find assistance from my people. My father had them carved." He said tonelessly. His hair riffled in the wind, but his hood stayed up. "Why are you here?"

He sounded drained.

"My Lord, maybe you should reconsider watching them as they mourn." She sat back on her heels and suggested quietly. "Human emotions are not filtered. Just witnessing them can be taxing."

His head turned. She could see his lips part in a sudden baring of teeth. But he turned from her rather than say whatever he'd been thinking.

Lusis stood up and walked over to his tea. She picked it up and sank into a crouch beside him, "I don't know if you're an expert on humans, Elvenking, but… when in the depths of a terrible loss, say the loss of a son, or the loss of a dream, some can fall into a moribund state. They wane. They waste away until they're hollow, until there's nothing left of life in them. Some die. Some end their own lives."

He looked in her direction. From this angle, she could see his ice-blue eyes shining in the starlight. He looked just this side of distraction, frustrated by the pitiful helplessness of loss.

"_If_ it's in their power, a being must fight not to allow sadness to grow to that level. But there's little you can do for them, in the end, from the outside, _until_ the will to live comes from them." She offered him the honey tisane again, "Watching a person suffer is suffering itself. I know it's said that compassion is a gift in the powerful, and I believe that. But you should guard against too much grief."

"A lecture," he grumbled. "From a Ranger." But he took the mug from her and settled it on one palm as his fingers slid around the vine pattern in what she suspected was silver.

"Not at all, my Lord. Just the words from someone to whom your wellbeing matters." Lusis edged back and looked around her. "Are you staying here?"

"Yes."

"It's not very secure." She exhaled.

"As long as I'm here," he sipped the tisane, "it is."

She went back to the Ranger camp to eat, clean up from the journey, and collect her blankets.

"Where are you going?"

"To watch the King." She said resentfully, and not of them.

"Heavens, Lusis. What kind of promise did that elf boy extract from you?" Icar looked up from the vines he was carving into the branch he held and frowned. "You know. The one who slept in-"

"On."

"-your bed?"

"And he's probably thousands." Lusis pointed out to them.

Redd shrugged at this, "He's a wise elf, one can see. In his emotions, he's… young, I think."

She exhaled and looked down at Icar. "If I hadn't put myself out for you and your brother, where do you think you'd be right now?"

Aric didn't hesitate. "He'd be dead."

"Think of that before you scold me over the promises I make," she sighed.

"And don't worry so much," Aric chuckled and looked at his brother. "Spending time with the King is its own punishment, I would bet."

True to his word, the Elfking stayed on the windy bluff, away from the fire heat, company, and shelter, to watch the barge. This was his river, after all, and more than his pride had been hurt by the death and destruction that had come to the gates of the Halls. So Lusis bundled in her blanket, with only her promises to keep her company. She was unable to huddle with him for warmth, like a sane person would. No, _that_ would be unseemly. He didn't move, as if frozen to the stump on which he leaned.

She kept watch until she fell asleep in fits and starts. It was too cold for real comfort.

It was down to walking up and down the bluff to get her body temperature up enough to sleep again. At one point, the moon was so large and bright she walked to the front of the bluff to marvel at it. The barge was still and quiet. The lamps were out.

When she turned, the Elfking was looking up at her, curiously.

Lusis shook her head in wonder, _Don't they get cold? Don't they sleep?_

None of that was his doing. She bowed to him and circled back out of his sight.

It warmed as the sun came. She felt the brush of long hair over her and realized it was an elf. The quick and secretive one – the _spy_, she called him. He was by far the oldest of Thranduil's elites. Ewon's dark brown hair and stormy blue eyes appeared above her briefly. He covered her in a sheer wool blanket whose underside was dense shirred fur. She slept until the motion of the King woke her. He sipped steaming tea. She knew it wasn't the same flower tisane, but actual tea, by the smell of it. He handed the cup over to Amathon and glanced down at her as an afterthought.

"We leave in minutes."

Lusis blundered up and folded her things. She bolted down the hill, every step of which she knew well, by now. And into her camp. There, everything was packed. She handed her roll of blankets to Redd, who tied them at the back of her saddle and then went to the river to splash enough water on her face to come around fully. It was ice cold in the water.

That helped.

She sat astride sipping hot spruce tea and chewing dried meat for breakfast.

The day passed as the first had. She followed the King's seven foot deer and they followed the barge closely through the river. The land was wilder still here. They rode in the river a lot. Dark came early, seeing as the winter had only just passed. Steed took her reins and let her sleep on horseback. He did the same for the other Rangers through the day.

Someone on the barge was playing a threnody on strings, and that had the elves solemn. The Rangers too. Redd knew the song, which was associated with the death of a boy trying to tame a white horse. He explained the whole affair, and Lusis liked to think even the Elites listened and were impressed by Redd's storytelling prowess.

The barge got to a particularly deep part of the river before it anchored for the night. It was only shortly after dark, this time. They wasted no time getting supper. The elves camped in a position not terribly acceptable to the Rangers, lit their fire on the ground, and took to the trees. Early in the night, the King stayed in the crescent of boughs Nimpeth built. He bundled up and seemed to sleep against the soft wall of green. Lusis knew this because she sat on the other side of the fire, her back against a tree. She stretched out her legs, crossed her ankles, and slept soundly while the elves moved around them.

When he started stirring, she did as well. Then Lusis watched as Nimpeth swept in on him with a hot cup of tisane, and to comb his hair. He gave a glance at her that made her back away and bow.

No one rushed her with teas and offered to care for her hair. Lusis grinned as she got to her feet and tucked mint into her cheek. She stretched herself. "Is it time to watch the barge, Elfking?"

He eased upward and sighed, "I have Amathon at early night and then Ewon. You are not needed, Lusis."

"That's great news," she said, shouldered her blanket roll, and waited for him.

The Elfking didn't try to dissuade her again. He found a great large tree and vanished up into its branches. Standing back, she could see the flicker of his blond hair in the wind, find his silhouette in repose against the trunk, completely at ease. But finding him in there took work.

She approved of the location he'd chosen. It was a hill of trees overlooking the river. Lusis spent the night sleeping at the bottom of the massive tree the King stood in, with regular intervals where she walked through the forest on quick patrol. The moon, which she happened to consider an enduring friend of hers, was huge and stunning as she jogged. She checked her troop and greeted whomever was on watch there – seasoned vets of the North, they didn't need her help scheduling their awake times. There was a particular staccato to sleeping in the North and they all knew it well. She found Thranduil's giant bull elk grazing in a meadow down by the water, as it was, apparently, allowed to wander around free. But it never failed to answer to his summons.

She checked the horses. They slept curled together for added warmth. It was odd to see horses so confident that they lay on the ground in groups like this, but though they opened their eyes to see her, they didn't get up.

Lusis walked the shore by the barge and found that they had only a single man on watch who was awake. She didn't pass in front of him and he failed to take note of her. That was fine. She meant no harm to him.

She turned around, nearly walked into Ewon, and about fell in the grass in the last stretch of the night, shortly before dawn. It actually almost made him laugh, but he handed her a flask of hot tea instead. He also gave her a small paper packet of fire-roasted nuts, sprinkled with sugar and salt.

_Delicious_.

Her last jog in the area was near dawn. She looked up at the tree and saw that the Elfking stood on a branch with his cup of tea as easily as one might a staircase. He raised the cup to her and she smirked. The Elvenking was the very quintessence of the word cocksure. She put her head down as she walked up the hill toward him, in case he was still up in the towering tree, and there might be some risk he could see her grinning at his impressive grandstanding.

They left quickly after their breakfast. There was no meat left and that had the Rangers grumbling. How the elves accomplished so much running on _tea and undergrowth_, as Aric said, no one was sure. Lusis handed her reins off to Steed and slept for a couple of hours in the morning.

She forged ahead in the afternoon and passed the trio of elves, who rode perfectly shoulder-to shoulder, unsurprisingly. She let her horse gallop along the grassy shore. She seemed pleased with that. Darkness came quickly in the valley the river had cut through forest.

"They're tying up," she noticed aloud as the band came over a swell in the land. It was nearly dark and she was just ahead of the King's bull elk. Her eyes caught a blink of red light in the water. She cocked her head at the figment.

The Elfking joined her. His eyes watched her closely. "You have come to alert. It is written in your spine. What is it?"

The nimble bull-elk gamboled aside of her horse with no need for stirrups or saddle. Its big, intelligent eyes studied the woods and river. Lusis made no attempt to answer him. She simply tried to listen to the tension in her body and determine if it had reacted to an imagining from there. The King glanced down at the small bend in Forest River. It was deep here. They'd crossed the water a furlong back because he knew the tie-ups were on this side. From here, the river headed slightly North-East until it reached Long Lake.

Steed's horse tore through the elves to the front of the line. "Lus, what did you see?"

She was very aware of the Elfking on her right. "I'm not sure I saw anything."

But Steed knew her too well. He pulled her horse around with a quick tug. "Remember who you're talking to, Lusis."

That snapped her out of her indecision. "I saw a curve of red underwater. Near the middle of the river. Glowing. We need to go down to Kasia and warn him. _Now_."

When she started her horse ahead, the King's great elk rode even with her. But it picked up speed on the way down. People on the deck stopped what they were doing, astonished that the Elfking's mighty elk was bearing down the hill toward them. There was little warning before the water began to steam. Mist began to build like a sea-fog.

The elves sounded horns from the hill. The Rangers charged down the hill beside them. By this time Lusis' horse was at speed with Steed beside her. The elk crossed their path ahead of them, bounding along as if weightless. The King shifted to a crouch on its racing back, and vaulted from its shoulders, to the roof of the stout deck house at the back of the barge, and leapt outward.

Because of the blunted black and orange serpent that had risen from the water. Its red, lustrous eyes saw the Elfking too late, and its maw opened in a jet of orange flame that missed him. His silver sword ploughed into its wedge-like head and held fast. It roared, and vanished underwater.

There was chaos on the barge as Lusis leapt aboard. "Kasia! Jan Kasia!"

The man raced from the deck house, white as blowing snow. "What was that? Did you see it?"

"Evacuate the ship and get them all uphill!"

"But the bodies are-"

Now she bellowed it, "Evacuate the ship! Go uphill!"

The thing had been huge. She estimated it at 30 feet at this point. With stubby red legs and red claws. "Where is the King!?"

Steed swung up onto the deck house roof, bow out and aimed at the water. "He went in the river with it!"

"There is only an escarpment of two fathoms at the foot of this hill – only there is the water shallow. Then the river goes another ten fathoms down." This was Nimpeth as she plunged from her horse into the water.

Amathon took out fighting blades. "It rises!" The water around them steamed, painfully hot. The creature broke the surface again and showered everyone in the aft of the barge with water and blood.

Steed let off a quick volley of arrows. The creature had no scales and they penetrated its thick skin, but not deeply. This made it handy that Amathon was able to duck in under it and slice it along the ribs. It issued an earsplitting cry and a ball of smoky fire.

"_Doom's-fires_, it's a _dragon_." Redd sputtered, astonished, and then raced across the barge, out of Lusis' reach. She ran along in a diagonal until she reached the edge of the aft and could launch herself at the thing. It was sinking back into the water. She was dimly aware of the patter of drops as the Elfking stepped off of the back of the monster's head and onto the deck house again, easily, and then she was sailing through air with the elf-sword out.

She was in a compact ball as it opened its mouth. She passed just through its opening jaws as it worked to make a fireball, and her borrowed silvery sword cut off the tip of its tongue. She rolled forward in air so she could look back at it right before she hit the water. Under the water, she sank while putting the elf sword away. She was lucky for its lightness in comparison to her own sword, which was heavy enough to make swimming hard.

Arrows – both elven and Ranger – sliced the water and hit home in the flank and belly of the beast as Lusis kicked away from it. She angled for the surface but the river was getting painfully hot around her. All she could see was fire. It clawed at her, agonizingly close. Almost at the surface, she began to lose consciousness. She couldn't get ahead of the boiling, flaming water.

A hand fished her out. Someone had cut the lines from the draft horses, and the barge now lay out across the river, beginning to turn with the current. Ewon braced his boots on a boom that wheeled out over the mist-choked Forest River. One hand held the rope and chain secured there. The other had hold of her. As soon as she was out of the water, Jan Kasia shouted a command and the four men controlling the ropes ran for the opposite side of the ship so that the boom sailed through air.

She dropped into Icar's arms on the deck. He was saturated wet, his leathers were scorched, and he had an angry burn on the side of his neck. He set her on her feet. Ewon touched down beside her. "The open water is dangerous. It exhales fire through its skin and water nearest it boils – a peril when its tail lashes."

"Got it," she coughed river water and got her hand on her sword, relieved she hadn't lost it.

Ewon sprang away, tirelessly.

Icar held her upright until the world stopped spinning and Lusis sucked air. She assessed the situation. Steed and Nimpeth were lobbing arrows at its head. Aric was in the shallows. Ewon joined him just in time to dodge a lash of the red-hot tail that sought, and missed, the quick Elfking. His fighting blades were out and he slashed first one side and then the next as he passed under the tip of the tail. It was the Elfking who was keeping the beast busy. Whenever it came to play, the King kept the burning head occupied. His focus was perfect. He alone was fast enough to dodge and slash at the endless darting strikes of its head.

Redd charged by with an armful of fishing harpoons.

"Go!" Lusis gave Icar a push and nodded.

In terms of sheer muscle mass, Redd was terrifying. His throwing arm was something like a catapult – he could pick up people and cast them into air. His aim could be iffy, but a thirty foot lizard is hard to miss. The first harpoon caught the creature straight on in the shoulder. It howled. Its head came around into a hail of arrows, one of which caught it in the eye.

It crashed down beside the boat. Everyone in the river darted away. The Elfking caught Aric and leapt from water to the deck where he deposited the Ranger while remaining crouched on the wooden rail, sword in hand, and eyes on the mist. His entire saturated body shifted with his breathing, but he was unhurt.

He launched away right after the second harpoon struck the beast and he saw an opening. It had started to rise out of the Forest River again. He slammed into its side, just under its short clawed forefoot, and his silver serpent's tongue of sword went deep. He bounced back, tearing it free, cutting away the leg.

Lusis fell into step with running Ewon. They darted up to the rails and arced through air at the back of the beast's head. Lusis had only one thought – blind the other eye. She landed on its hot and slippery skin and had to roll forward or fall off. Heat chewed at the soles of her feet, then her shoulder and back as she went. She put a knife in its eye and dragged down. Once she was in the water, she endured a sharp moment of burning pain to plant her feet into it and shoot away, fast.

Its tail came up. Amathon spun into position and cast a crooked blade at it – this elven weapon was on a long silvery chain. "Get out of the way, fool-Ranger!" he shouted. The chain wrapped the tail tip, the curved blade closed in and Amathon's cast cut away two feet of flesh and bone.

The beast released a tremendous cry. The Elite elf slammed into her in time with it and they soared out over deep water and sank down under gouts of fire.

It was Lusis who righted them for the surface as soon as the flames passed. Amathon was too busy, still trying to control the chain he held. Ingenious. The beast's balance was affected by their momentum and the drag of the current they were in. The only problem she saw was that the line of chain was still attached to the monster, and that meant – she got an arm around the elf's broad chest. They both shot through the water at _incredible_ speed.

Then up in the burning air, so high she could easily make out the barge end-to-end, in one glance. She snaked a leg around Amathon and let go of his chest, stretching away from him so that, suddenly, they slowed in air. His hand slapped against her shirt, bundled in the front, and pulled her in. Their spin sped. Jaws snapped air just short of her face, which splattered blood all over her. A spout of fire gave them updraft, and, she suspected, a decent good char. Ewon hit the chain and they jerked right and down, suddenly free of the beast's tail. And falling. She pieced together that the barge's tallest boom was coming at them. Nimpeth raced up along it and leapt. She caught the chain and arched for the deep river. They struck it seconds after.

Lusis shot to the surface right behind Amathon.

Nimpeth was already out of the river and staring at the Elfking. She was frozen in her tracks.

Silver blade out, wet to the skin, he slunk back through the water with the great blunt head of the serpent before him. Nearly above him. Because, somehow, he was so absurdly close to it, now, that its heat was drying his steel. Closer than he'd allowed before. He eased nearer still, almost under its chin. And he watched it and moved so warily. Part of this was surely that it couldn't see well anymore. So the Elfking stayed in its blind spots. It couldn't taste the air for him, at all. Yet it heard the slow glide of the river water around his soft motions, but didn't attack. It just _wasn't sure_. And in those margins, the King put his faith. In those margins the King endured.

"Make noise," Lusis shouted for the Rangers.

Nimpeth skidded to a stop in the stony shallows and stood silent. It was a kind of fit of helpless motion. There was nothing she could do but distract.

Aric bellowed at the creature. "Are you done yet, you ugly beast!?"

Redd joined him, "Can't you find us over here, monster!?" and, just behind him on the deck house, Steed threw down his exhausted quiver and pulled his sword into ready service.

Lusis' eyes found Icar by the shoreline, guarding the escape of Lake Township mourners to the shore. He panted, a hand plastered to the burn on his neck, and directed them to head out of the monster's easy access and along the shelter of Kasia's barge.

_Alive_.

Then she broke for shore as quickly as she could, her eyes never leaving the Elfking. His slow motions were like some summoning magic as he eased around the massive head of the creature, he went further up onto the shallows. His concentration was absolute. She watched the steady flame inside of him build with a kind of fascinated horror, afraid for him. Afraid he would _burn_. But the King was entirely calm. He was beautifully poised as he extended his silver sword out beside him. The great lizard limped a final step, pulled in a deep breath of air, and released a stream of flame.

And the King did not move as it billowed out.

For Lusis, the world slowed down. Her feet reached the stones of the shallows. Her sword came up, she ran for the King, but she could not make it to him in time.

As the flame reached for his clothes, he caught the edge of his cape and spun aside. His long hands met on the grip of the long silver blade. River water shot up along its grooves as it cut an arch in air. It became a silvery scythe. He lopped the creature's head clean off.

The fire died in a gout of steam.

If she hadn't been in such a battle-fueled state she knew she would have failed to see it: that graceful evasion that had morphed into a deadly cleave. He kept turning out of the way and then leapt through air onto a boom. Fire poured out of the severed body and shot up the side of the stony hill.

Icar plunged in the water to avoid it.

The people of Lake Township were frozen in the shallows, safely out of reach.

The Elfking dropped into water up to his sternum and whispered at the hill. Water swelled on his side of the river. It flowed down into the belly of the monster to put it out, and it flowed up the hillside.

Then it was over, and he stood with the white-hot flame inside his breastplate slowly sinking down to the steady tongue of fire that it generally embodied. He took steps back into deeper water that Lusis characterized as involuntary. Exerting one's will over nature was taxing, she gathered.

But he recovered himself before Ewon – who'd nearly hacked through the beast's spine – leaped to the river, and the blood, to assist his Lord.

Blood lapped on the shore. There was quiet, except for the trickle of run-off downhill and the slosh of legs through water. Lusis reached the Elfking and scanned him for any hurt, but he seemed untouched, apart from some scorching on his cloak where he'd collided with the burning beast.

He paused in the shallows, picked up the heavy head of the lizard, and carried it to where Icar and Jan Kasia stood. There, he dropped it at the Master of Boat's feet and kept going. The great Elfking walked along the huddle of humans on his way to shore and the shock-white face of the young boy's mother pushed through the crowd to him. Her hand pressed to his steel breast plate.

"No." Nimpeth hurried along to tell her quietly, "No-no."

This dissuaded the human woman not at all.

The Elfking nodded in acknowledgement, and kept walking. The woman behind him, bowed her gratitude. She looked stronger. Satisfied.

The Elfking continued along the starboard until he found the cut ties in the water, and whistled up the bull elk. He wrapped the ropes in those huge horns. The beast pulled the drifting barge to rights against the tie-up. He was keen to get the humans seen to, so that he could see to his own fatigue and wet steel.

"And the barge horses will have their heads in a Long Lake manger before full dark," Amathon said in what _had_ to be elven humor, or so the Rangers thought. They were the ones laughing.

The Elfking glanced in their direction and smirked. "Then _you_ can pull the barge to Lake Township." He took the rope from the elk's head and looped it along the stone anchors at shore. Then straightened and stretched. His gaze fell on Jan Kasia. "Once the flesh rots from that Fire Salamander's skull, you can mount it at your dockyard."

The Master of Boats blinked at the Elfking. "We are… obliged, my Lord. We are… in your debt."

"That is a matter for the Kingdom's seneschal." The Elfking shut his eyes and raised his head into the moonlight that broke over the ridge. "Take it up with him. The rest you owe to the Northern Rangers." His voice was cold.

With the dark on them, the water was, once again, freezing. Lusis limped behind the King, and shivered. His hair was so wet it was plastered to him in one long line. He paused only to take off the circlet and toss it to Nimpeth, which she caught one-handed and folded into cloth to dry. He smoothed his hair into attractive disarray. He glanced at his elves, "Why is there a Fire Salamander in my river?" As if they could produce it's paperwork to be there.

"Elfking," the Master of Boats hailed him. "Come aboard by our fires."

He was exhausted, the King. He glanced over his Elites, "Shall we?" But it wasn't a question. He was telling them to follow. The people of Lake Township were hustling things around, and had pulled out braziers they now hurried to light.

Lusis glanced up to see Steed, Redd, and Aric aboard, and rounded up Icar. She was spending the night drying off somewhere warmer than the woods, and Icar was getting a salve on his burnt neck. That was for certain.

She sat aboard with her men on one side, and the King on the other. His Elites had to cut the Elvenking's breastplate off. Impacts with the serpent had both fused the buckles holding it, and collapsed it into his ribs. He gave a hiss as the knife Nimpeth used touched his pale skin. Redd heard this and got up to help. He was massively strong, and, could keep the steel plates compressing the king open enough for the elves to work. In the end, he caught the steel sculpted to fit the King's long back as it dropped away. It was a broad piece in very good metal, patterned with small feathers, and Lusis hoped they could fix it.

The King was saturated, his clothes and hair sticking to him, but he could breathe easily again, so he folded his long legs up toward him and leaned on the wall of the barge, just drinking the free air. Nimpeth carefully set the circlet beside him on the deck. There was great reverence there.

Lusis got the impression only the Elfking had the experience to behead that beast.

Maybe owing to the fact they were all soaked, they were very subdued. This wasn't exactly a problem on a ship ferrying the dead. The general excitement circled around getting things and handing them over to the Elites. Wool blankets. Flasks of wine the Elfking waved away. He got out of his long coat and it was set out to dry by the brazier. The shirt underneath gaped open to just under the nest of his throat, which was simply not proper for an elf. His shoulders were bare. Tremendous shoulders – beautifully formed as if by some great elf artisan, just like the wet shadows along his breathing torso.

Lusis cocked her head at the massive bruise that painted his otherwise cherry-petal skin blue. How much force did it take to collapse a pauldron of such high quality the way this creature had?

"Fire Salamander." The Elfking drew the words out, rolled his eyes, set his head back against the wood, and sighed. "How is it we can slay the greatest evil of all the Ages and not find peace? It is tiresome."

Jan Kasia sat down among them. He offered them a flatbread with savoury meat and thick rice folded inside, seemingly to soak up the juices. Lusis dug in and found the stuff fragrant and delicious. In fact, all the Rangers went between the wine and the meat bread. And she tried not to stare at the King just to watch him breathing.

Kasia extended a flatbread to Nimpeth and she refused him.

"They don't fancy meat," Redd detained the man's hand and smiled. "Don't let it bother you. They just don't eat a lot of it."

Aric groused over his second glass of wine, "They didn't seem to have a problem with fish stew." He looked up at the four elves whose backs were against the wood wall of the ship, and who – with the exception of the King – all seemed very strained on the barge. "My question is… what's that about? Are the fish not your friends?"

The Elfking's icy eyes darted over. "Your Ranger friend is in his cups." He seemed mildly amazed, "_Already_."

"Come on," she took away his mug and replaced it with her water. "That's enough for you, Aric."

"I don't get it, though. Fish is meat, right?" he shook his head. "And I'm _fine_."

"Well, you see, we had a rather _long_ Eastward voyage across the open ocean at one point, and one thing you may notice about the open ocean, Aric Awnson," his hand gestured a flat sweep through air, "no land, but an ample supply… of fish." the Elfking's tone was exactly the sort one used with a child.

Aric's lip curled. "What? Were you there?"

"Hit him again," the Elfking indicated Icar.

Aric ducked this time, and then swung out his hands, "Do you see, Lusis? Why are you putting your neck out for this Elfking? He's sharp, and cold. He's arrogant-"

Lusis elbowed the young Ranger, hard. This mightn't have been so bad if Icar hadn't also smacked him in the back of the head with the flat of his hand.

"Well, it's not untrue at least," Jan Kasia scoffed. "You _are_ haughty. You _are_ ruthless." He said.

"Might as well complain 'You _are_ King'." Redd growled a warning.

"If we're to enumerate my flaws we will be here a while, Master of Boats," the Elfking sipped a mug of tea that Ewon had boiled, and then cooled, for him. He finished with a dry, "I've been alive for a while." And no apology in his silver-moonlit eyes. His head tipped. It was an entirely different alchemy when one could see the pale column of his white neck. Lusis had to look away.

The bruise darkened on his sculpted shoulder. He stretched his back slowly.

Lusis glanced across from the Elfking to Kasia. If they were _sharing_, she was _obstinate_ and _uncompromising_. _Many_ people had told her so. She'd still helped to save these Lake Township citizens tonight. And so had the King. "He gave you a Fire Salamander's head. Come on, man. That used to _win_ a lady's hand."

Redd and Steed started to laugh. Aric would have joined if he hadn't been fuming.

"Romance is dead." Lusis' tone was wry.

Kasia frowned disdainfully in her direction, but she fretted little over displeasures that came without threats, shackles, or bladed weapons. In her opinion, both these men were of breeding, powerful, and well-off. Both were handsome or beautiful and headstrong. Pride may well have been a failing they shared. Like having hot tempers. She set down her cup.

Lusis swept water beads off her lap and noted, "It's clear to me that we did well working together. We did better than we would have done apart. And I can only smile at the notion of nit-picking when we all might have gone up in flames if we hadn't pulled together."

The Elfking's head tipped. Whatever cutting remark passed behind his moonlight eyes, he managed to throttle it to submission. "Peace," he said, caught his long hair – blue-silver under the moonlight – and twisted it ferociously. Water ran down the bruised muscle gliding in his shoulder.

He released his hair into artful disorder. And glanced down at the circlet as if it was too much bother. Lusis shook her head as she looked at him.

"Sincerely. He is not of this earth," Aric muttered. Annoyed, he tore into another flatbread.

Ewon opened a fur-lined blanket and draped it over his King's long legs. Then he pivoted around the rail – rather than pass between the King and his conversations – to examine the bruising. Thranduil continued to drink his tea, his long arms an artistic marvel. "Your problem is not my avarice, my vanity, it's not _me_, Master of Boats," he shot a hot glance at Ewon, who, after causing him pain, inclined his head at the King. "It's no longer about the Fire Salamander who burnt through your rudder chains and set the boats in flames. Though… she may have a brood of eggs hereabouts. My patrols will clear them out."

"And what do you suppose my problem is?" Kasia scoffed.

The Elfking actually had to breathe deeply to keep from snarling. "It's that eight men are dead, but they didn't appear to die of burns or drowning. And that Fire Salamanders have no need of a man's eyes. Do try to pay attention."

Kasia cocked his head, "How… do you know it wasn't drowning that killed them?"

The Elfking's eyes averted under thick lashes. "We know." His gaze bounced up, "Aside from which, I would assume you insist your barge workers know how to swim, yes?"

"It's required," Kasia cocked his head.

"_Required_," the Elfking's brows rose a faction, and he glanced at Ewon's hands. They moved his long arm to test the function of the bruised shoulder joint. The Lord's pale eyes widened a moment, "_Careful_, Ewon. That one is connected to the _tea_." He lifted the cup a fraction in demonstration.

"Sorry, my King," Ewon tried not to smile and failed. They were very old friends. He'd served Oropher well, and known Thranduil when he'd been a stormy and headstrong Prince, not yet a fiery and proud King. He sat back on his heels and nodded, quite serious now, "It must be attended to. And you must rest. Also your hair is a state, my Lord."

The King's voice was spent. "Oh, the world will end." He sipped tea.

Redd burbled with laughter, "Did you miss that little row his Majesty had with a flaming lizard?"

The Elfking tipped his head back a little so his silvery gaze found Ewon. "Did you?"

"I did not," Ewon exhaled. He wasn't known for speaking much. "You are _injured_, my King. You _must_ rest and _be healed_."

This didn't seem terribly entertaining to the Elfking. He curled up his long legs. "There is the matter of what killed the men, what took their eyes," he looked aside at Lusis, "Master of Boats." Now he looked back at Kasia. "We must remain vigilant."

But that wasn't for the king that night. He curled against the side of the barge in the moonlight, still as a statue for Ewon's healing work. The bruise ran far enough across his back that the back of his neck was purpling. In spite of the discomfort, he remained still and looked dreamily asleep.

And Ewon's fingertips had that same steady glow, connected back to his elven chest, which was illuminated by a steady tongue of flame.

Magic, Lusis thought as she watched blearily from her wool cocoon.

The sort of forces that had allowed the Elvenking to douse the burning hillside before it had become burning furlongs, the power that let Ewon heal, it was wearisome.

Her eyes skipped down to his back as Ewon's precise fingers planted light in the King's flesh.

She felt reassured because the flame she saw in the King was as golden and constant as ever.

She shut her eyes, her promise unbroken.

Downriver, the forests thinned and fell to tree-dotted fields still thick, in shadows, with snow.

The Rangers looked at one another and, almost as one, unfolded the reins. Their horses blew by the elves. The King's great elk spooked aside. It took the Elfking a moment to realize they were racing. He set his elk into a leg-stretching canter.

The canter ate ground steadily, even though the land was slowly tilting up in this area.

Their new draft horses from the barge weren't fast enough to keep pace, but they smelled their pastures at this close distance, and that brought them from a trot to a canter all their own. The barge surged toward home.

Lusis crested a final bending hill and could see the Long Lake before her, and a plain, and a massive, solitary mountain. It was positively beautiful under the spring sun. And the land around the lake was dotted with so many settlements!

"The Lonely Mountain," Redd called out to them all. "Home to Thrain, his good son, Thorin, and the bones of a dragon, it's said. Or… it should have been the home to Thorin. If the powers played fair."

Lusis looked at the sky and frowned, "They rarely do."

They stood at the bend with the barge coming up to the final swell. Beyond it was the great eddy of convection that led into Lake Township. It sat on the mouth of the river, a new city, mostly of salvaged stone and wood. It was an interesting character. Prettily painted in colours that complemented the land and spring. The elk belted by. The King was relaxed as he watched the river, his hair bone white in the sun, and flying.

"You gonna let him beat us?" Lusis got her horse around and chased him. Then they rode in a line of Rangers stretched out beside the Elfking.

The Master of Boats had an extensive dockyards, with many storage buildings, tie-ups, jetties, and booms for hoisting smaller boats for repairs. Many ships were at dock. The Rangers slowed. But the King's elk sprang onto the extensive wood quay and kept to a rolling canter. People shot in all directions to clear a path.

A wharf ran along the bottom of the quay, just above the surface of the water, and the horses pulling the barge vanished into this space. The ropes to them were freed from the barge, and workers shot out to intervene with the coasting ship. Long staves came out to slow them, both from the dock and from the barge.

Jan Kasia watched the Elfking from the prow of his ship. The great elk was fast and agile. It leapt onto the main quay so that when the ship came to a stop and the plank came out to its starboard, the Elfking was there to meet it.

Sighing his frustration with so excellent a deed, and so vexing a river overlord, Kasia had the boom swing the head of the Fire Salamander from the deck to the dock. It was in a crate now, but, with its delivery, and their return, it was clear that the King thought this one matter settled. He backed the great elk up several steps and then turned him to look back the way he'd come. It was a sea of human faces.

Three horses came down the stairs. Amathon rode along in front of Ewon and then Nimpeth. Amathon's blood bay was in an elevated trot as that gave the most warning to people who had to get out of the way. Nimpeth stood up on the hindquarters of her roan mare, bow in hand and sheath of arrows at her side, the better to see the King. Ewon's dappled horse was quiet and fleet. He spotted a pair of children on the dock, both gazing up at him excitedly, and smiled down at them.

Beyond the wind over the ships and distant birds calling, there was no sound.

Kasia stared at the velvet ripples of white-gold elf hair, which was the only thing in motion about the King, and he realized that this vexing river King _was_ a being of great and excellent deeds. Which gave him an idea.

"Elfking," Kasia stood on the dock and hailed the man. The elk turned in place, nimble, like all of its hooves had stood on a platter that, itself, had turned. "You can rely on the hospitality of Lake Township for the night. It's been a long way." He left it at that, and stood his ground as the great elk drew in on him.

The elves reached and ringed their King.

Lusis and her Ranger brethren had tied up their horses at a post and left Steed watching them. She, Redd, Aric, and Icar walked the way that the elves had passed and came to a stop with them. She looked around her excitedly. "It wasn't like this last time I was here. It's built up in the last five years."

"I wouldn't mind being around human company again." Aric smiled at the prospect of human women for company and Icar rolled his eyes.

The King tugged his right rein and the huge elk turned in Kasia's direction. He said nothing, which was probably difficult for a human to interpret. Lusis peeked around the flank of the deer and nodded in Kasia's direction to help. The fact the King had quietly turned to face him meant that the offer had been accepted. It was all in the body direction and little changes in posture.

Kasia glanced from her up to the King – the sun glinting off his circlet and sword hilts. He backed up a few steps, and the King drew ahead. So it was he decided that Lusis was right, and he turned and walked toward a large complex of wood buildings. They had tall, angular rooftops to avoid the crush of snow at winter. The architecture was foreign to the Elvenking. It lacked elven intricacy and delicacy, but it didn't want for its own stamp of grandeur and beauty.

The range of colours interested him. There was little weathering inside the Halls – most of them were not exposed to open air like these houses, and the weathering changed colour intensity. Here, the stains used on houses didn't resemble the natural colour palettes the elves favored. He found it curiously appealing. He overlooked the township rising from the banks behind him. "Like a bed of flowers," he said softly.

The families from the barge were around him, and seemed pleased with this assessment. They followed him inside huge double doors when Kasia turned them all toward a central building.

In fact, Kasia's last command was that the crate with the 'Serpent's head' be brought inside and down to cold storage.

There was much chatter after that. Such a massive crate that it needed to be moved via booms, and a team of draft horses was needed to drag the sledge on which it sat.

The King didn't dismount going in either. The bull elk walked carefully over wooden floors. The inside was clean, bright, and orderly. Men looked up from their ledgers and stared. The front section was a cavernous warehouse of crates and storage, but the back was not. The King, who, doubtless, cataloged all these numbers of goods, slipped from the bull elk. All the elves dismounted as one.

"We have stables." Kasia looked at the elk in speculation.

Now the Elfking's lips curved in amusement, though it faded quickly. "Do you have fields, Master of Boats? I don't believe he will relish a stable."

Arrangements were made for the King's elk, who was then told where to go by the King, and released – something so baffling to Kasia that he had men follow the elk to make sure it went to the proper treed pasture. Which, they reported in amazement, _It did_.

Jan Kasia wound up giving a tour of his facilities. On the surface of things, it didn't seem to be something that the Elfking would care about, but he was a very shrewd man when it came to the business of his kingdom and good with numbers. He followed all of this well, and seemed content with the balance sheet in his head.

"Humans are an industrious lot, given to progress." He said quietly. He was overlooking the floor of the building where shipments were tallied and payments were made to the 'King of the River'. Lusis watched the men below closely. There was no hostility to be seen among them, but they were pale with fright that the previously invisible 'Elfking of the wilds' that they paid tithe to – and half of them expected this had been Kasia's personal cut, she suspected – had actually appeared in the flesh. She could see the value of having King Thranduil come here. It put a glorious face to the tithe, _clearly_ the face of a King, and that let the pressure off of Kasia. It must have stewed there, from time-to-time. When men shot him dark glances and whispered about _his_ cut, _his_ greed. It gave the men someone else to blame. The King must have been aware of this too, because he kept his Elites close to him here. It wasn't just that these were humans, she'd seen him at ease with them, but that these were humans who had a very longstanding dispute with him. Even though they'd never seen him before. No trouble came of it at that point, and they made their way to Kasia's lodgings.

Kasia's daughter was named Avonne. She was seven, quiet, and sweet natured. She saw the Elfking as he came from the business and crossed the large courtyard to the Kasia lodgings. Properly, it was a rather large wooden lodge. As soon as the King came through the door, the small girl began following him. Her father and the King were still talking about business as Kasia greeted his staff and led them all to a massive fireplace.

As soon as they were seated, Ewon started tying cats-cradles of thin, silvery elven rope in air for the girl. She mangled the other end of his rope into knots. By the time Kasia and the Elfking had finished, and Kasia looked to his daughter, he found her sitting with Ewon, Redd, Steed and Aric, learning how to tie knots. Close by was Nimpeth, whose features were soft at last.

"Elves like children, I think," Lusis told their human host quietly. "I mean they're good with children, or they seem to be. Not like them to _eat_ them or anything. Just in case your wife comes in here and panics."

"Ah," he nodded and his smile faded. "My wife will never come in here again, Ranger. Or go anywhere in this world." He gathered himself and turned to the wide-eyed head-butler of his home. "Rooms for the guests. Spare nothing. This is the Elfking of Mirkwood, and he's had a long journey here, though not a far one."

He stepped aside to arrange for their stay and was unaware of the Elfking's eyes following him. They turned to take in the grand room from there, and the painting on the mantle – a blonde woman with large grey eyes.

Kasia's wife had died. Lusis purposefully didn't look at the Elfking. His wife had been killed. These two had a lot in common between them, but she suspected their handling of these losses had been very different.

Avonne, though, proved to be absolutely in love with Thranduil's long, pale hair. She was a blonde herself, but her hair was much darker. She snuck every opportunity to touch the Elfking's hair that a little girl could dream up. It made Lusis's fingers itch. She wondered if it was really that wonderful.

It proved very hard to explain to the staff that the elves _did not_ eat meat, and that this was not a matter of their believing that humans couldn't cook the stuff. Therefore, they snuck it into dishes, which had the net result of making the Elfking, at one point, chuckle at their inventiveness.

She didn't think he had that setting.

Kasia, on the other hand, slapped his forehead with the flat of his hand. "Tell them fish. White and pink. No more rabbit. Or bird. Or, _for the love of the Stars_, no _deer_." He gestured roughly toward his collected serving staff, _well_ out of sight of the elves, and admonished, "He _talks_ to _deer_, for pity's sake. He rode in here on a _massive elk_."

Lusis had this second hand from Icar, who'd almost been unable to relate it, he'd been laughing so hard. Tears had run down his face, and Nimpeth had worried he was in some distress.

The other thing giving Kasia grey hair was the fact _nothing on earth_ could dissuade Avonne from climbing on the Elfking. She sat beside him and leaned against his arm when the adults curled on hide couches and had aperitifs. She got up in his lap at dinner and helped him identify the meat squirreled away on his plate. She explained the different dessert selections – elves were almost _wholly_ unfamiliar with this extension of a meal – and, when the sweetness didn't agree with the elves, she volunteered to sit in the King's lap and show them how to eat dessert – the reward for the rest of the meal – properly.

"She likes you," Kasia said some time after. Avonne had fallen asleep while the Elfking talked business. "She usually only sticks to me that way."

The Elfking swirled his wine, "There is some hope in this acceptance. If only for the future, should she follow the natural order and come to run this place. Perhaps. I will know her face."

"And she'll know your hair. Aside from which… I don't hate you," Kasia sighed. "You are a terrible inconvenience to my wealth."

"I run a Kingdom," the Elfking curled his long legs up under him without shifting the child much at all. "Tally that on your blotter." He stretched out his arm, still stiff from healing.

"You strike me as a bit fierce for that. Before I got you into the offices, I didn't reckon you to have a head for this sort of thing. Not like Eithahawn, your seneschal. I actually feel… bad," he raised his glass, "at times, giving that one trouble." Then he chuckled, "He has such patience, such grounding in the law and reason, and such huge innocuous eyes when he needs them."

"Ah, yes. Eithahawn. I've known him since he was born," the King smothered a smile and glanced down at Avonne. "A long time, I suspect, in your years…. His family was massacred. He could find no rest after that, unless it was like this." He indicated the child sleeping on him, "My own son. For a long time after his mother passed from this shore, he – we – could not stand one another's company. I suspect Elves do not mourn the same way. I am sorry for your loss, Master of Boats."

That had come out in a fragmented jumble. The Elfking's face, now so solemn, never shifted, never betrayed anything but a mild distress, as he watched the girl's blonde head against the fine silk of his jacket, perhaps imagining others.

The Elfking finished, "You have not failed in this. She is a happy little creature." His expression softened. "Peacefully adrift."

"It's past her bedtime," Kasia smiled and had the governess come and take her away to bed.

It was snowing as the King walked the upper floor to the room that had been assigned him. The hall there was very wide, and windows ran the entire length. His footfalls sank into rugs, and the entire arrangement agreed with the Elfking. He felt closer to the outside where it was… late winter in this elevation. He stared out at the stables and cobbled yard and the business buildings. Walking up the hall, he could see the city beyond and the Lonely Mountain, and was made simply happy by the gentle snowfall.

"The Dwarves chose a lovely place," he said aloud, "but harsh. And now these humans…. Look at all these doors." As they wound down for the night, the elves pinned theirs open, and the Rangers shut theirs. The staff marveled at the difference in them. But to Kasia himself, it was just a reminder of how open the guest halls were.

The Elfking had the grandest of guest rooms – massive, well ornamented, with a huge claw-foot tub, and even larger fireplace – and was unlikely to forget it. The bed was a four-posted monster, carved in pale wood to resemble pillars from the Lonely Mountain. "Goodness, it would fit scores of dwarves. Maybe _all_ of them."

He undressed and let Ewon fuss with his injured shoulder and arm. The bruising crossed the broadness of his pale back almost to the other side of him.

The healing made him heavy. The heaviness made him curl up on the bedding. Maybe all elves slept like cats? Lusis, who sat on a bench in the hallway and looked in the door, was listening, but pointedly stopped looking at the King in such a state of undress.

She found the nerve to turn her back to him to avoid temptation and slowly fell asleep herself.

A cry rang out. It ricocheted through her.

Lusis was in motion. She rolled to the floor and ducked under the bed. Bench.

Where was she?

Jan Kasia's place.

And she'd dreamt someone screamed.

Yes. She slid out from under the bench. Ewon, fully dressed, held a hand out to stay her. She could only just make him out in the dark. Nimpeth slunk from her room and into the King's in one low and boneless motion. The King wasn't in his bed anymore.

Aric was crouched in the doorway of his room. "Damn windows." He muttered.

Lusis stayed low and loped down the hall. She tapped the door to Redd's room. "Did you hear that, Redd?"

"I did. If I open this door, it will be obvious I did." He added, gruffly. "There's an inside hall. I'll see you shortly."

The cry rang out again, and the clopping of boots.

"It's outside," the Elfking said. He was clothed again, his circlet in place, and his hair spilling over the armour that Nimpeth and Amathon had spent half the night at Kasia's forge repairing. He loped out into the hall and was down the stairs before any lamps came on in the area.

They stepped outside into a night cold enough to make Lusis muffle a few coughs against her sleeve. Crisp air took a moment to absorb.

"Hang back," the Elfking cautioned. "Lest we be blamed for this calamity."

Lusis and Aric were already through the yard by the time he'd finished the sentence. Most of the Rangers were close on her heels. Icar hung back – as she'd discussed with him that, in her absence, he was to safeguard the Elfking.

The Elfking gave a soft hiss and followed the young and disobedient Rangers, which brought his elves along. They were through the yard and rounding the building when Kasia, cloaked in a huge fur, and the security who toured his properties appeared – Kasia from the house with a trio of swordsmen, and the business' security, from various directions ahead.

"Sir," the men recognized Kasia right away. "The Rangers are already on the docks."

Kasia pulled his hood around him, still fastening on the long fur, "What's happened?"

"We're not sure." One of the larger men came around the back of the main building with a huge spear in hand. "Stay back, sir, and away from the-"

The Elfking brushed past the spearman and Kasia followed the elf, fearlessly. When the white-steel flickering of sword came out, the light of the lamp that the house-guards carried ran across its lines. It looked like a tongue of fire, long and merciless, from the Elfking's hand.

As one, Amathon and Nimpeth pulled blades – a sword and two fighting blades respectively.

Icar, not to be outdone, had his sword out and was just ahead and to the left of the King, seeing as the white snaking sword was on the King's right.

In the darkness ahead Ewon's low voice spoke a few rolling lines in Elvish.

"What was that?" Kasia asked.

"He said," the Elfking's graceful head lifted in the dark. "_It is bad_."

"Oh," Kasia rolled his shoulder and looked at his head of security. "Sounded like more."

"I'm sure it was," Lusis stepped out from the shadows of the main building's wall and inclined her head to the King.

He wasn't surprised, the Elfking. "Lusis Buckmaster, do not run off again."

She was startled to find him so adamant. His tone was colder than the night air.

And then it moderated, "Now take me where it is."

"Yes, my Lord."

He followed her through shadows, Kasia with him.

The Master of Boats reached out to point at the water. "Those crest shaped lamps? That's the local forces, hereabouts – Aimes' Men, since they were hired to patrol town by Master Aimes. Not that there are many left who still carry out that service, with Aimes in the ground. He was the man in charge in Lake Township. They're already there. There's no reason for us to-"

"Dead woman," Lusis frowned back at the Elfking. "Eyes are missing. Redd and I found her first. We can answer any questions."

Redd and Steed stepped around the mouth of the alley. Their presence on the docks wasn't unusual. There were people starting to gather from other parts. The Elfking walked out into the gentle snowfall. He could easily see from the edge of the dock the body of the woman stretched in the small vessel below. Her blank, red sockets steamed in the cold.

Kasia set a hand over his mouth to keep from swearing, but the elves didn't change a whit.

"We are not needed here." The Elfking agreed, and as he turned, his quick hands slid sword to sheath in one lambent movement. But he didn't walk away. Instead, he glanced over his tall shoulder to Lusis. It held a moment longer than it generally would, and was considerably colder. When he set off, she knew he _expected_ for her to follow him. And since she was aware, it was precisely what she did. This specific means of death in the snowfall of this vivid little town had disappointed him. He was now angry and on edge. She needn't rub salt into that.

They made their way inside as a mismatched group – Kasia's men, the Elfking's, and her own. Inside the door, he glided through the foyer into the main room beyond, and his long cloak buckled in the heat from the fires there. Many of the staff stood, having seen the lights and heard the commotion outside. The elves were quite intimidating coming in.

Kasia looked stricken and nearly collapsed, but that the King deigned to catch hold of his elbow and lower him into a chair. It was easy to forget that many people had never seen this kind of death before. Kasia's hands shook as he cupped them over his face a moment. He looked out and up at the tall and beautiful Elfking, "Was it the bodies? Was it that I brought the bodies from the Halls to be buried?"

"_No such deaths_ happened in the Halls." The King stood over him, cold, and unamused. Lusis might have warned Kasia that this was no time for trying the King's patience, but there had been no time. Now the Elfking's voice came out with the sharp crack of a whip under its tones, "What aren't you telling us, Kasia? What is the real reason you insisted we stay here? I doubt it was for my wellbeing as you care nothing for the Kingdom but to refute the idea you should pay for the safety of the river."

"I was wrong," he said airlessly. "I thought with the dark powers gone from that cursed burning Mountain and stone ruin in the South, the woods and river would be safe. But there are yet troubles in the land. Monsters, like the head in that crate. And there are men coming this way on word that travel is possible without legions of orcs and goblins abroad, men such as I've never seen. Even trying to get the loaded barges to the river, we have need of guards nowadays. And yet we cannot seem to find _enough_."

The Elfking's long stare didn't abate. His head tilted in the firelight, and he listened to the troubles of a man who was not a King.

"We need help." Kasia shook his head and looked up at the King. "You took that beast down, just a small handful of you, in minutes. It would have climbed in this Long Lake and lived for years among us, a blight."

The King's brows went up. He sounded somewhat mollified. "We are not Lake Townships forces to patrol your people, Master of Boats. We are wood-folk and our charge is the long river and deep forests. What services you need for a human town are far better served by hiring Lusis and her men than my elven guard. You need _Rangers_. One of them is worth a section of human men."

Redd exchanged a glance with Steed, who managed to look pretty proud of himself and then hid it by looking at the floor. Aric and Icar looked to Lusis instead. If there was call for them and she was amenable, it was clear they would work here. The area was bustling, and Icar had already reported that there was an old library whose books had survived a dragon and been moved here. Though Hale's surviving books and records, Redd reported, were in the Hoard.

"Your elves are out there," Kasia exclaimed. "It's only that they're _outside_ the town. I'm told they will not come in it. The Master of Forests was greeted by one – a woman stood at the side of the river in plain sight of him. They are out there."

"I am aware."

"Why do they not come _in_ it?" He got to his feet. "How did they let such a thing in? Didn't you charge them with protecting this place?"

"Their charge is ever to protect the wood and river," the Elfking's body pivoted to the fire, which lit his hair brilliant white. "They are not yours to command, Kasia. They are mine."

He walked to the King in challenge. "How could you let a _monster_ in here!?" The house staff clumped together at the mention of the word.

The Elfking circled Jan Kasia. He spoke slowly, each word like a drumming drop of blood, "I am not your _King_." His silvery eyes were agleam and it was impossible not to notice that his pupils, swollen in the firelight, retained an alien, slightly oval, shape. "I am not your _kind_."

He shut his eyes, "You have so much power. And this place is badly in need of a King."

Thranduil stepped back from him and glanced around himself, almost as if lost, or woken up in an outlandish place. His next words came out in a little hiss of air. "Kasia, this shock has left you unwell. I can pardon it in light of the fact civil men do not see what you have seen. But I remind you there is a Master of this town, and that I _tax_ the people of these lands for use of my river, and punish them for misuse of my forest. _Knives_ are turned at my back here."

"You really aren't aware?" Kasia watched the Elfking pace before the fire.

"Oh," the Elfking's teeth flashed. He bent in at the man, his head tipped, and looking, in that moment, truly vicious. "What. More?"

Lusis' hair stood on end. He was one of those wonders that was as terrifying as it was beautiful, like a vast glacier, or a deep ocean. An old and formidable thing with the power to destroy. She held a hand out to stay Aric in case he breathed a word. But he didn't. He merely stared in fascination.

Kasia sucked air to speak, "The Master here. He'd been Master for weeks. Like the forces, the Masters keep meeting with misfortune along these shores." He caught the Elfking's eyes. "Authority is crumbling along the Long Lake, King of the River. The population is swollen with men from prisons broken open during the war in the enemy's hopes of creating chaos, and now they come to raid the gold of the Lonely Mountain."

"Dwarf gold. Men's gold." The Elfking shut his eyes. "Go to the dwarves with this."

"How?" Kasia laughed harshly. "Their cut goes through long, deep tunnels that lead to the Iron Hills. They want no truck with men. They are hardly ever seen! Perhaps you could speak to-"

The King's hair fanned he turned away so sharply, "You would _not_ want that."

"Oh, we _would_."

"The last dwarf King from among the Longbeards of Lonely Mountain that I did business with, he withheld my goods and ignored my words of warning. His Prince shot an arrow at my elk _while_ I was _on_ it. My help would be no help at all."

"And you laid an elven sword over his grave, my Lord," Amathon interjected quietly.

The Elfking's eloquent lips snarled, "He would have _spit_ on me for the kindness."

Ewon made a soft hiss between his teeth. As far as Lusis could tell, that was, set on its own, very emphatic among their kind.

"Like elves, dwarves are a proud race. It is often forgotten that they are. And that they _do not_ relent." Now Thranduil looked at the doors to this human place. His chest worked the steel plate overlying it so the leather bindings creaked, but his temper held.

Kasia sucked a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled slowly, "_Chaos_ is coming, Elfking. There will be lawlessness in these parts. Nothing will protect the Halls from these raiders. And I know, now, that I can try to accept you as my Lord. You saw the awe in people's faces, and there was hope. They can accept you, I swear it."

"My army will protect my Halls from these raiders," the Elfking said softly.

Hearing this, Kasia looked nearly bereft. He couldn't speak. But no one could. Lusis was breathless, planning – which Rangers she could reach, if she could impel them to leave their fighting in the North and police the land here, if they would be enough, and where was most strategic for her own force of men. And the unspoken words in the room weighed the air like toxins, suddenly.

If the Elfking would not help them, then the good people of Lake Township and other towns in the area would be overwhelmed. The vandals would roll down the Forest and the elves would kill them, yes, surely. But it would be too late for the people of Long Lake.

"This empty world," the Elfking exhaled at last. "It asks so much. It takes so much." He turned from the fire and the room and walked to the doors, thinking. "I said to Merilin to go to Long Lake and encamp in the woodlands thereabouts. His section was to monitor the waterway and passage _into_ Long Lake, not to interfere with men."

"_Into_ Long Lake. To an elf I bet that means _into_ Long Lake _from_ Forest River," Lusis said aloud. She'd caught the Elfking's emphasis.

The pale King turned toward the Elites with him. "Ewon, summon Merilin and his section."

The elf bowed and darted out into the night.

"Nimpeth go with him." The Elfking told the black-haired elf woman, and she simply vanished from the room, she moved so quickly. Now he turned to Kasia. "I am _not_ a King of men. Men cannot accept one such as I am. I promise you that."

"The section is coming here?" Kasia got up from where he'd collapsed into a seat.

The King noted, "A section is a mere thirty elves."

Kasia laughed a moment and then wiped an eye, "Mere."

"They are here to report to me." The Elfking said, "They are not going to become a part of your human forces, Kasia. I am not a deliverer. Not of elves or men."

Amathon glanced at the King sharply when he said this, and stared at him. Clearly, there was a passionate difference of opinion on that matter.

The Elfking glanced to his right, not at Amathon, but at Lusis. "Wake me."

Which was all the direction she got on the matter. Not when or why. He trusted her to know, baffling creature that he was. But he was far overtaxed by now, so all Lusis did was say, "I will, my Lord. Rest well."

And she looked at Kasia. _An Elfking cannot command men, is that right_?

He did well enough commanding a band of Rangers, since it was the Chief Ranger's will.

What Jan Kasia was asking _was_ insane, but… desperation was the mother of innovation.

So she hoped he found her willingness to follow the Elvenking promising.

It was shortly before dawn.

For Lusis, horribly enough, the tension had been cut – she couldn't help her nature. So she slept well on the bench outside of the Elfking's open door. But there was much weighing on the Elfking, and he'd slept for two hours before the upset at the docks, and four hours fitfully, afterward.

When she woke suddenly, her sword sliced thin air.

Morning. Nothing more.

And she had to get him, which she'd thought nothing of until she'd walked into eyeshot of the bed. Dawn's light streaked the sky, but the moon still dominated, flooding the sheets, barred with the shadows of the grilles. His flesh was silvery blue. He should have been entirely pale as cherry petal, but was a great elasticity of abused flesh. Yes, the bruises were no longer fresh, but his silver skin was mottled with fading offences made against him. His hair. It tumbled along the sheets in crystalline disarray, like frozen water. It had lost all formal shape and was just a cascade falling behind him. She could see the expanse of his curving cheekbone up to one fascinating elf ear. It was so delicate-looking. One long and well-formed arm curled below his chin. That hand bunched a sheet. But the other extended into the sheets to the naked sword.

She froze, instantly.

His tapered fingers were loosely around the grip. All the better that he could behead her with before he even awoke. She eased out of the reach of the sword and tried to ignore that the entirety of him was radiating light right through the white cotton. The Elfking was a vision… but he was also a living nightmare. It was a mercy he was also, for the most part, still lost amid a pile of sheets. But for those long… terrific. Legs. Like his shoulders, and sleek arms, they were ruthless. His face turned to the sheet, soft and deceptively young. His features, which she'd have sworn she knew well now, and had hardened herself to, were revolutionized by the unsophistication of sleep. This is how he looked before the world had flattened him with the death of a father, the murder of a wife, and the estrangement and flight of an only child, with a kingdom, enemies, armies, massacres, and a dragon or two on top… for good measure. Like virgin snow.

For several moments, she couldn't look away from him, his long eyelashes, and that vexatious blossom mouth that didn't know when to quit. So comely, to get him in so much _trouble_.

Lusis reminded her overheated brain that Thranduil was _also_ famed for his beauty.

He could no more help what he was than she could.

One side of his face, she remembered from Redd's stories, had been disfigured once.

It was like the side of his personality that was set on _viperine_ and was… damaged.

Light fingertips could likely establish the scar.

If she got too close he might cut her in half.

She didn't try to stir him until she could feel, with her fingers, that the heat had left her face. Also, she forced herself to bring her breathing back down to normal. She would not stand there like an idiot in a ballad, and gasp his name. Fine – gasp his _title_. She could never call him by his name in this life.

The last to return to her control were her own thoughts. That was most important of all. The elves were ridiculously good at body language. They could tell things about its life from the posture of a deer. _She_ wasn't getting a pass.

Finally her voice pulsed, "My Lord. It's time." and she cursed herself.

His head rolled on that long neck and his half-lidded eyes looked at her, silver, damp, and soft.

She turned, stiffly, and walked out, shutting his door and leaning against it.

"Miss? Is something wrong?" Asked one of the two curly-headed upstairs maids. They were strong girls, and practical, wheeling along a cart with large pots of steaming water. They angled the cart toward the Elfking's room. "We're supposed to start filling the tubs at dawn."

Lusis brightened without warning, like a girl. "Mine too?"

"Yes, of course," the opposite housemaid beamed at her.

As usual, she could forget _anything_ when faced with the prospect of _being clean_. Her ambition was to own a house with a large, gravity-fed tub like at the Halls. "Oh," she remembered herself, "Nothing's wrong. He's just… in there." She nodded, stepped aside, and popped open the door for them. They could only understand if they understood – no harm done. She shivered. Lusis headed next door to Nimpeth's room. That would be their very next stop with hot bath water.

The girls brought her water and filled her tub and she swore they were torn between general _delight_ and _dazedness_. Lusis sank into the tub a bit perplexed. She often swore to herself that the Elfking's beauty drove pure hearts straight to sin, and minds into lunacy. But the pair of serving girls looked _hopeful_. They were _happy_.

She'd been in the bath a long time.

Outside her door. Amathon was fully clad in green leather armour. The elves recovered hide from deadfall, often, rarely hunting for the sake of clothing and meat. His leather was sturdy, but he wore a breastplate and pauldrons this morning. The breastplate had one long etching of an antler around its circumference, and the pauldrons were engraved with small whirling chains that extended onto the horn's tines. Such artistry. Out in the sun, his long, dark auburn hair cast cherry-red light along the hardwood surrounds. He'd braided some of it back. She shut her door behind her and his brows went up as if he'd placed a bet rightly.

It made Lusis smile. She didn't have to look to know his door was wide open.

"Good morning, Amathon," she gave him a small bow. He was already on a mug of tisane. She could smell the Rowan berries from her bedroom door. That was her favourite. He gestured at the window and light glinted off the steaming cup and his chain-etched vambrace.

The section was in the courtyard in a long line of green cloaks. They stood stock-still, boots planted slightly apart with their hoods hiding their faces, and their bows lying across their thighs.

"Nimpeth was not amused that you took her bath," Amathon said to Lusis and then nodded as if that was just _the_ greatest thing she'd done to date.

And who knew? Maybe she'd climbed in his. They were close, somehow.

She grinned, "Glad I could help."

He actually laughed, and then found even greater enjoyment. "Oh look."

Down in the courtyard, Avonne, in a fur cloak, was marching along the line of fierce elves. Her Nanny and her Governess were in a fit behind her, trying to get her to come away.

Aric, who rested against the frame of the window further down the hall, started to chuckle to Icar. Steed gave a yawn and stared, wet-headed, and not yet awake, dully amused at the little girl, the yard dusted in snow and lined in elves, and the humans coming to their morning's work.

Kasia appeared at the end the upper hall at about the same time Redd pondered out of his room. His shoulders were just about as wide as the frame, she figured. Barbarian. Lusis grinned at him.

Then Amathon brought his cup back to his room and returned with his weapons.

"That's as far as I've seen you get from them – your weapons I mean," Redd gestured at the bow and sword. "It's a proud day in Lake Township, Master elf."

"I am ignoring you," Amathon told the Ranger indisputably, "because you are silly."

This reduced the Rangers to gurgles of true amusement.

Ewon stepped into the hall with his dark hair slickly wet. He looked sharply attractive, with a vulpine face. He gave a nod of greeting, but was mostly lost in the wonder of watching Avonne inspect the section. He bubbled elvish at Nimpeth when she joined him at the windows.

"Easy now, father," she dropped from elven to say to him.

"Not at all. The heavens love a little girl," Ewon disagreed with her. He set his forehead to the side of her head in an adroit motion and shut his eyes. "They are magical."

Nimpeth's head lowered a fraction. Moved in spite of herself.

Ewon was her father? He was a very old Silvan.

They parted quickly, but the feeling of their connection did not die. Lusis watched it extend between them like a scattering of stars. She'd never seen the like before.

Kasia came down the hall with a horrified glance out the windows at his child. "She's taken leave of her common sense. It's something about your kind, I swear. Elves, please forgive her."

"Done," Ewon said quietly. And immediately.

The Elfking stepped out, didn't look at a soul of them, and swept down the hallway in a fragrant wash of wintery forest air. He was entirely in silver today, so that his armour looked like white ice over it, and he, himself, washed of all but the faintest watercolour of eyes and lips. Delicate. Elegant. With a sword strapped over his back in a pale steel sheath.

Kasia fell back from the figure he cut and blinked.

He gave no sign that they should follow, but everyone did.

In the main room, the upstairs staff waited in a throng of nervous spectators pretending to be busy. Although perhaps they were, Lusis thought. It was possible that they were about to have thirty more bellies to fill. The huge table was fully appointed.

The silver Elfking made them all fall silent as he passed.

Nimpeth and Amathon opened the two doors at the front of Kasia's lodgings and the King set foot out onto the granite. The section moved in unison, pulling in their stance, swinging their bows to their sides and inclined their bodies toward the King.

By now, the windows of Kasia's shipping company were full of workers staring at the display. The Nanny finally caught and snatched up Avonne's little body. The section of elves straightened and followed the Elfking's slow turn inside. Their line started for the door in a bird-like V that merged into a straight line up the granite stairs.

By the time they all came in and lined the room, there was silence, and the Elfking curled in a leather chair by the fire.

"Merilin, there was a murder on the docks last night. A woman. Her eyes were missing." The Elfking rose to his feet and walked down the huge human room. He was scintillating with quartz.

The elf, Merilin, twitched back his hood. His hair was a very dark brown and rippling, and his eyes were a sunny blue. "Yes, my Lord. We heard the alarm and came along the dockyards to see to your wellbeing. We established that you were well. The woman was dead by then."

"Did you happen to witness what killed her?"

"We were monitoring the waterway into Lake Township from Forest River." Merilin said. "If it passed us, we remained unaware."

"Yes," the Elfking stretched. "We also had no sense of it. For such dark actions, that is alarming."

Lusis frowned, "Unless a person did it, right? There will be rumours all over the city about the condition of the bodies."

"Investigation will bear that out," the Elfking assessed. "Report, Merilin."

"Six nests were detected along the banks of Long Lake. Clutches of eggs that were being consumed by several newts, two of which were four to five feet long. The rest, perhaps sixteen, were under two or three feet."

"Fire salamanders." The King pointed out.

"It seems you killed the mother."

"_We_ killed the mother. It was done by coalition – humans, elves, and Northern Rangers. We need that message to be clear outside these doors, Merilin." The Elfking shrugged, "I just beheaded it."

Just like that, one of the women on Kasia's staff hit the rugs. The Elfking turned at the muffled sound, perplexed, but she was out of sight behind the silverware laden table, and no one else moved or even looked at her, so he missed her presence. He turned back to Merilin, who didn't draw attention to the human out of elven politesse, and several staffers slowly sank to the floor to give the fainted woman aid. It was everything that Lusis could do to keep from slapping her forehead with the flat of her hand. Humans. Unless it was chef to kitchen maid, there wasn't _casual_ _talk_ that included _beheading_.

"Are they dead?" the Elfking asked. "Not just dismembered?"

It was just as good that she was down for the count at that point.

"Their heads are harvested, and their bodies have been skinned, cut to parts, and burnt." Merilin noted with a nod, "One did remember that Salamanders will regenerate limbs."

"Well done," the Elfking glanced at the table. "Anything else?"

"The venom and intoxicant present in the newts, tadpoles, and eggs are inconsistent with the poison load in the unfortunate victims of the barge attack." Merilin told the King.

The Elfking didn't seem surprised by this. "Yes. Same can be said of the mother. So there is something else out there. Something full of poison. The venom load of a Salamander, even a large one, is not as potent as one might expect. Certainly not enough to turn a body into a weapon in minutes. At the same time, Fire Salamanders do not _coordinate_, so we are currently under attack."

Silence among the elves.

They bowed as one, even the Elite guards.

Lusis looked around her. It wasn't a declaration of war. Was it?

Now the Elfking said, "Send word to Eithahawn."

"Yes my Lord," Merilin and the others straightened. "Your orders for this section?"

There was a very long pause. He weighed things.

"Break camp. You will become our escort. We leave for the Halls in the hour," he turned to Kasia. "Good luck to you, Kasia. Perhaps you should consider Mastery of this place. Better than noble blood, you have the _funds _to maintain your power and safety."

Kasia blanched and looked at the floor. The entire room became subdued with its grand table set in hopes the elves would remain. The Governess and Nanny hurried up the stairs with Avonne.

And the elves carried on. Merilin inclined his head, "It shall be done." He straightened, clearly pleased with the idea of leaving this human settlement.

The elf-king turned with the low flattened hand extension that meant _leave_. It might have looked surprising to the humans when the line of elves split and walked out into the crisp morning air. They moved out into the yard. Merilin went down the stairs, tugging his hood up, and the avian V of elves melted into one line behind him, leaving through the narrow alley, under the eyes of throngs of humans.

First Aric and Icar, but then Steed, looked aside at Lusis. She frowned and went to the Elfking's side as soon as the section cleared down and he was not occupied. She glanced back for guidance, to Redd. The big man looked at the floor, flummoxed and plainly disappointed in his King.

Behind him, Kasia was in motion, and he looked determined.

She slid the silver and pearl chain off over her head and held it pooled in her hands, "I won't be able to leave with you, Elfking. These people are in trouble, and I have to do all I can to bring Rangers here, and be among them." She felt a sinking inside as she offered the chain. "Thank you for all you've done for me, my-"

He didn't even look her way. His hand simply rose to cover the cupped chain and pearls she tried to return to him. He applied a very small pressure toward her. Lusis read that as an indication that he wouldn't accept the chain.

She stepped back from him and, lacking anything else, she bowed and replaced the chain.

She felt watery, for some reason, emotional, which wasn't her way. "Thank you, my Lord."

His hand dropped, he stepped forward, and she read his fingertips: _Leave_.

She walked back to Redd, off balance, and her Rangers grouped around her. "I was dismissed."

Icar nodded at her, "I saw that. That time." He'd been practicing reading the small motions of elves. It seemed like his studies were about to come to a close, and he was dismayed.

"But he had you keep the chain?" Redd reached up to turn one of the pearls, which still appeared to be full of stars and colours to Lusis' eyes.

"He did." She touched it and looked back at the King. Her voice dropped to a very low mutter, "I wonder why he did this. Leaving. It's like… it's not what he wants, but what he should do."

Everyone just sort of looked at Redd, but it was Aric that snarked, "Anything about that in your history books?"

"Nothing but that he was hard, proud, and… _why didn't you talk to him, Lusis_?"

"I was…" she lowered her hand in an inexact replica, "dismissed."

Aric's brows went up, "Then why did you _go_?"

Excellent question, that one. Her jaw clacked shut and she glanced at the sun-drenched elf who stood with his arms tucked behind his broad back. She wondered at him. His ambition seemed wholly to be to get his people to the much sung-about land of elves – the Undying Lands as they were called – and to have them reach it alive. She had a sense that he'd given up on dwarves and was losing his faith in men.

"We need to pack up," she told her men. "We won't be living on Jan Kasia's hospitality. Steed? I need you to rent a horse – we can't keep the elf horses. You need to ride out for Rangers."

"There's a spring camp in the Grey Mountains not far from here. It's days of riding to reach and days back – be aware." He nodded. "I'll find out about a horse."

She turned to Icar and said, "If you could stay with the King, would you?"

"I'd stay with my brother," Icar exhaled his disappointment and got an elbow from Aric. He ignored this with a cheerful smile, "Where would you go? Would you stay with him?"

She actually felt her head begin to tilt and stopped the motion, "I'm asking the questions." She turned to Aric and Redd, "If we wanted to know about the most dangerous people in the new towns that have been cropping up, how best to tease that out?"

"Fist fights," Aric popped his fist into his palm. "Paid ones."

"Research, find out who everyone's afraid of," Redd suggested.

"In bars," Aric added to this.

"Don't get killed," she sighed and told Aric. "Don't get cocky. Try not to get hurt."

"Listen to her," Icar gave his brother's head a push. "No fighting, unless there's no other way."

The Rangers packed up, Lusis with a heavy heart, but she'd decided herself. They brought their packs down the stairs and Ewon extended a hand to each of them as he saw them and placed it on their shoulders. When he reached Lusis he also stepped back from her and said, "You must remember my name if you need to send for support."

She hugged him, which wasn't something he was used to, but he wasn't entirely unaccustomed either as he naturally got along with children, and small animals. Ewon was a nurturing sort.

The King paced before the fire in restless rings. Graceful and grave. Lusis looked at him longingly. It was a strange feeling, realizing that she would very much miss the company of a King. But when she'd been desperate he'd tried to help her, and instinctively, without real reason.

And the doors opened to Kasia coming in from his warehouses. "My Lord, if you would come with me? Before you leave there is one last thing on which I could use your opinion."

The Elfking spun in place, his steps sure and almost angry as he swept out the door with Kasia. Lusis saw Ewon's brow wrinkle and said, "I don't like it either. We should follow."

Kasia led the King straight through the cobbled yard. In the sun, he looked like a white pillar of fire, lit up, and in a very serious bent. The main warehouse was _packed_ with people. They lined the walls, and the balconies that overlooked the hall below. People everywhere, and almost silent. The Elvenking slowed to look up at them all. Lusis wasn't the only one to put her hand on her blade. Ewon had his bow out. It would be easy to fill them all with arrows here, but none of the humans were armed. They simply lined the rails and stared down at the silver figure that was Mirkwood's King. At the very front doors of the big warehouse's storage area stood a line of six men. A tall woman paced along their number and looked at the King only rarely.

"It's fine. There's no threat here." Kasia told the sudden ring of armed elves and Rangers.

"Stand down," the Elfking commanded, and the Elites lowered their levels, but deceptively, still ready to launch into action. The Rangers didn't stand down a whit, and they wouldn't until Lusis gave the order to. The King paid that no mind, or may have been relying on it. Or both.

"Hello," the eldest man among those at the door stepped forward. He was finely dressed in black furs and expertly riveted dark golden leather. His red beard was trimmed neatly, and he wore a cap on his otherwise hairless head. He was, to the eye, like a handsome, human-sized dwarf. He spoke slowly. It was as if he didn't expect to be understood by the tall and silver King.

The King's head swiveled into a soft tip. That was very difficult to interpret in him.

The human laid a hand over the star-shaped rivets on his chest. "I'm Cardoc Wence. I run the lumberyard in Long Lake. I am the one who does controlled harvest of the deadfall North of Forest River. I hold a contract with you and have never been in bad standing. Do you… know me?"

"I do," the Elfking replied, and nothing more. He'd never seen this man, and knew him only because Wence never resisted tithing and never violated agreements. Likewise, Cardoc knew the King only by reputation, but found him fair and easy to work with because he was vigilant never to flout the rules and charges the Elfking handed down.

"It is an honour." Wence told the tall, radiant elf.

The Elfking's blue-silver eyes averted, which, at least, showed some modesty. Lusis wasn't sure if it was real or simply politesse, but it did make her relax a little.

"I'm here to represent our interests – that of Lake Township and several other legitimate communities." He gestured at the other finely dressed men, and the waspish woman whose pacing was drawing the Elfking's attention. She was a tall and beautiful human woman with arched brows, brown eyes, and black curls, and a very cold expression on her face. Her bodice was so tight that Lusis began to suspect she might have had some ribs removed.

Elves tended to be fascinated by dark eyes. Dark colours, like _very_ pale colours, were infrequent among their kind and that was cause for excitement. Lusis had caught more than one of them staring at her eyes, which were so dark a brown as to be nearly black, before. This new woman's dark eyes, ceaseless pacing, and unnatural figure combined to distract the King.

Cardoc Wence named out the strangers before the Elfking and his colourless eyes took them all in with a remarkable calm, given the inherent danger of the situation.

The Elfking's chin rose, "What do you want?"

"We want to offer you a deal," Wence told him. It was as if he'd been training on this speech for a while, acting in ways that were inoffensive to the King as gleaned from people who stood in petitioner queue. Not that they very often got to speak to the King himself, but Eithahawn was very good practice. "We would like you to lead us through this unsettled time, and to help us restore order."

"These are the lands of men," his hand dropped as he turned, "I am an elf. I cannot help you."

"You're a wise and astute King-"

The Elfking nearly laughed, but caught himself in a sharp rush of humor. "Ah, my. Whatever happened to _King of Greed_, Kasia?"

Almost as one, the collection of fine gentlemen stared at Kasia in alarm. Only the woman, who still paced, disclosed a different emotion. She was entertained.

"I was mistaken." Jan Kasia amended his statement to add, "And angry. I didn't understand. I hadn't had any time in your company, Elfking." And then stalled, because even after saving the men and women of Lake Township from a fiery death, he'd called the Elfking arrogant and uncaring.

The Elfking looked up at the balconies full of human faces, packed to capacity with onlookers staring down at him. "Is that what this is to be, then? There is some risk that order will collapse, that your businesses will be overcome and fail, you cannot resolve these problems on your own, and so you turn to the very people whose laws you are loath to observe?"

At that point the red-lipped woman stopped pacing and answered outright. "Basically."

He looked in her direction, not sure what to make of her. "You are asking an elf… to lead you. I have an entire Kingdom of my own. My responsibilities are many."

"Well," she flounced up to him, "Thanks to the King in Gondor and a Fellowship of many races, Sauron is dead. You, yourself, held one of the _keys_ to the defeat of the Ring, and your army went to Dol Guldur and ended the enemy there…. Trust me, I've had to sit through 'A Modern History of Thranduil' with these men for months, I know what you did, shrewd one."

The Elite elves stiffened and Ewon made a hiss.

But the Elfking very nearly chuckled.

"It's _Elvenking_." Lusis growled at the tall, curly-haired woman. "Or _King_ works."

"Ah, I pity you," the Elfking told her as if no upset had occurred. "It is a bitter story."

The human beauty made her way to him.

"Trust me on this, beautiful one, I know that no man is perfect. No elf either. But _perfect_ is not _good_, because to be good _is_ to be imperfect. You are smart, resourceful, and not new to power. That is what we need here. There are things we would trade you for those skills, white dove." She stopped straight in front of him and looked up into his face. "Many delightful things."

His too-pleasant voice was smooth and glossy as silver box chains, "I am also harsh, unfeeling, and _not interested_." He told her. His hands tucked together behind his back, his head tip was brutally unsympathetic.

The woman didn't wilt under his withering gaze, but she did fracture. She was cold underneath, like the watery vein of a glacier. "You can help us. And we can reward you, Elfking," she shot a look at Lusis and her sword, and then smiled at the King, "_richly_, be assured. I can find _something_ that you like."

Lusis felt her teeth flash in distaste.

The King moved. He straightened his spin and raised his head. His silvery eyes shut. The spark within him grew in intensity until he radiated a blueish-white light. It was like his bruised body had absorbed the moonlight he'd slept in the night before, and now it discharged out of his flesh. Lusis blinked at him, amazed, and the woman fell back several steps. The Elfking had breathing room again. "I suppose you are here to offer me gold and gems from the mountain?"

"That's some of it," admitted Cardoc Wence, he blinked the afterimages out of his eyes. "But there is more that we're willing to negotiate. Favorable contracts. Local enforcement of tariffs."

The Elfking's lips curved and he pointed out, "Cardoc Wence, I would be your _King_." He turned in a flickering of his long coat, and then looked up at the rafters. Glowing in the falling sunlight. He called out to the humans, "You are free men. You do not understand. A King is not like a Council. He is not like a Master. There is no debate. A King is _law_." His sword rang out as he drew it, so quickly many could not track the movement. He looked at the blade. "To resist him is treason. When he tells you to go to war, you go to war. Even your lives serve his will. Tell me, _why_ would you bid for a King who is not even _human_?"

"Why did we bid for a King who is not even Silvan?" Amathon walked to bow in front of his startled Elvenking. "You are a Sinda," he straightened, "as your father was. But in you, my King, there is a fire of ascendency. You _are_ a sovereign. I cannot scold these humans for taking note of that." He glanced around him.

The Elfking closed his eyes and searched for forbearance. He seemed to stop breathing.

Lusis felt herself begin to smile. Amathon had been quietly aboard this idea for a while now.

Kasia stepped in and noted, "The Fellowship worked because so many with different skills came together, yes, from their worlds."

The Elfking told him, "You do not need a Fellowship. You need proper human governance. Whatever that looks like. I do not know." He had no real idea.

Cardoc added, "Did you not send your own son on that adventure? You both fought to end the Ring by portioning these challenges. It is the thinking of an experienced leader."

Now Kasia nodded at him, "We are under siege, Elfking. Seven men have gone to the Master house and all seven have died in the last half year. One with his _entire family_. We must have a leader in the next days, by the time of appointment. Or peace itself, stability, is at risk."

Something in the Elfking snapped, "Do you have any idea what you ask? There are things that cannot be undone, Master of Boats. Would you see your people on their knees to an _elf_?"

"Better than seeing them on their knees being cut down by an army of criminals." Said the ice-water woman. "And he will have his concessions as King," she turned to the men. "_Men_. In exchanges you are _forever_ dangling things in front of the beautiful, and then whisking them away."

It was rare for the Elfking to be speechless, but his lips parted now and he stepped back, wordlessly. He exhaled and looked to the doors of the massive facility.

"Open them."

Merilin's elves dropped from the rafters, graceful, bristling with weapons, and they did as he requested. They opened the great doors for the King, so that the outside brushed over his figure and lifted his bright hair. The sunny morning air was chill as he stepped outside and toward the unblinking blue eye of the lake. Birds wheeled above it, chattering on the breeze, but the docks were still. No one was working. Barges bumped to port, moored, but nothing more.

"Go away and debate this," he told the humans. "Come to a different decision, I urge you. For if you do not, I will claim this land and lake and act, for some duration, as King in this place."

Merilin's section stepped to line and bowed as the King passed them. He went straight to Kasia's house, up to his rooms, and paced until sunset.

During this time, Steed secured a horse. This was made simpler because Kasia was eager for as much help as possible and, during a break of the Council of Lake Township, Kasia worked with the local business leaders for both supplies and two horses for him.

He was ready to go by nightfall, and Icar elected to go with him.

Lusis blessed this in the end. She'd been fearful of Steed's being alone, and yet had visions of him stumbling across frozen heath with his arm splinted and bound to his chest and a sword, naked in his other hand, waiting for orcs to descend, to make a final stand.

They departed just before dark, and Lusis saw them off.

"Is that the King?" Steed stared at Kasia's uppermost halls.

It was. He stood in the windowed hall and watched them. Perhaps he'd come to think of them as extensions of his will. It was too far to imagine he worried about their wellbeing. Though it might have been true that he did. They had helped him kill a Fire Salamander, and he'd very much come to peace with their company since then. In that aspect, he was something like Redd, who had issues in trusting new Rangers until post-battle.

Steed inclined his head to the King, as did Icar.

"We'll be quick about it, Lusis." Icar squeezed her fingers before he rode out.

"Eyes open. Be careful." Lusis called after them. "Be out of sight by full dark."

"We're going the woods way," Steed told her with a nod. "The Wood-elves will know us now."

They'd never been able to say that before. Lusis smiled and looked aside at Redd and Aric. Redd was just as amused as she was, but Aric's face was drawn. He already looked pale and agonized. Within an hour, he'd taken what he could from the kitchen and an elf horse after the pair. This was no surprise when Lusis considered the boys. They'd been orphaned young and, without one another, neither would have survived. They were young and deadly by now. And they would probably never be parted in life.

That left her with Redd.

They went inside and sat together in the grand room. It was almost sunset.

"They're along the woods now." Redd soothed her. "That elf horse is faster than the wind. He's overtaken them by now."

The doors opened. Kasia and the Council entered in solemn quietude. There were very many people in the yard beyond. One thing she'd noticed among the people hovering around Kasia's establishment was that they had high hopes for the King.

The three Elite elves stepped into the path of the Councilmen.

Amathon stepped toward Kasia, "Master of Boats, there is some concern. Do you, in fact, know how to serve a King?"

"I would like to think I do."

Ewon looked away and chuckled.

Nimpeth's brows drew up. "If there is occasion for other elves among us, even Merilin's section, and you do offence to the King, you will endanger yourselves and your standing amid our kind. Do you understand?" She looked at her father.

"The Elfking, Thranduil, was born in the First Age. He is a King. He is the son of a King, it is a long way back before you find anything but the blood of warriors and Kings in his bloodline." Ewon said to them. "This affair stands against his better judgment, but I believe he will help you if you ask it of him. He will tell you he is cold. He will not tell you that he is also _good_. You will _not_ do damage to him. And be aware… he has a temper."

The tall curl-headed woman was named Nema, and she laughed throatily. "A man. With a temper. Never happens." She gestured in air.

Nimpeth's teeth flashed in a hard smile at the woman, "Little girl, a _man_ with a temper is a rather small problem. A thousands of years old King with a temper is beyond your ability to reckon." The pearly fangs vanished behind her lips again. "What gifts you have to offer him, do not bring before him. It will try his patience. Have them sent to the Kingdom by ship."

"I'm not sitting my girls on one of those barges!" Nema stomped a booted foot.

The elves glanced amongst themselves. Amathon blinked, "Girls?"

"I'm in the service industry," Nema's smoothness had returned. She smiled at them in a fashion that was considered seductive among the humans. "I've selected four girls for the King."

"Girls?"

"You know. Professionals. For his use," Cardoc gestured at Nimpeth, "Women."

Amathon crisply told the man, "Associate such with Nimpeth again, and I will cut off your head."

Ewon, who was Nimpeth's father, nodded softly.

Cardoc froze. "Don't they have professional women among the elves?" He paused, thought, and asked the elves gathered before him, "Or would he prefer young men?"

Elf heads tipped in all directions. Mass confusion had broken out.

"I am a professional woman. Of the Elite guard of the Elvenking of Mirkwood."

Ewon said something in elvish. Both the younger elves looked at him, suddenly expressionless.

After several heartbeats, Nimpeth answered carefully, "We may have trouble here, it is clear. You must… avoid speaking with the women of Merilin's section. They are young… and well-armed."

"None of which addresses the problem of my putting my girls on a boat to elf-lands." Nema shook her head. "It's too dangerous for them."

"He will have no use for your concubines," Ewon told them. "Send them home to their mothers."

"Like hell," Nema bubbled. "I've never seen a powerful man in my life with no use for concubines. Well… beyond Kasia," she actually looked sad as she said so. "But he has reasons."

"The King has too," Kasia realized and glanced at the madam. "Leave him be, Nema, I warn you. You think he's beautiful – he is – but he's a terror. I've seen him _fight_. He's no one for you to toy with. I suggest, given what we're about to ask, we work with these kind elves to keep ourselves out of trouble." He turned to Nimpeth. "I'm sorry for the insult to you, Lady Nimpeth."

Now her eyes brightened. She almost smiled. "Master of Boats, have no fear, I am well defended. Amathon is my husband, and Ewon is my father. There is nothing you could possibly say to me that you could get away with." Then she actually did smile at him, and even inclined her head.

"You must consider working with Lusis Buckmaster – the Ranger woman. She does very well among our kind." Ewon gave a grave nod and the elves, almost as one, glanced up to the stairs. The King came in a wash of blue-silver. His step was effortless, if listless. He crossed the room straight to them.

Lusis rose to her feet, as did Redd. She stepped out to flank the King, which he'd come to expect by now. His Elites melted back out of his path.

"Hello Master of Boats, has your sense returned?" the King's velvet voice asked.

"Thank you for agreeing to remain on here for long enough for us to make this decision." Kasia lowered his head in a grateful nod. "I understand better, now, how gracious a thing that is."

"Good," the King nodded. "We shall be gone by morning."

Cardoc shook his head, "No, Elvenking, you misunderstand. Our decision is the same. Our minds are not changed. We just realized we should have thanked you for giving us your time."

Finally, the Elfking shut his eyes. Some number of heartbeats passed in silence. Then his long silver gaze found the floor. He turned gracefully aside from them. "Humans are fools."

"You said you would claim us," Kasia reminded the Elfking.

For a long moment, the Elfking stared at him. And then he set off for the door. "Remember that you wished for this. This… was your will."

Lusis hurried after him, unwilling to miss what would happen now. She gestured at Redd, seized by a sudden excitement to see what the Elfking would do with a Township of humans in his power, a tiny fraction of his Kingdom, yes, but a real part. She'd never heard of an elf leading humans before, and there was no prohibition that Redd could think of, all day, that stood against it.

Except common sense.

The yard was packed with milling people who shrank back from the silver creature that was the King. He drew his sword with slow grace, ringing on the scabbard, and turned it in air in a dignified arc. He lay it across his back as he walked. It was bright on his silvery breastplate and colourless hair.

He went through the buildings and to the docks.

He was followed by a bewildering mass of people, all of whom were from the Township. A girl nudged Lusis and she recognized this as one of the mourners from the barge. Her head was up. She was proud, whatever was to happen. Finally, they passed to the stone shore.

The Elfking looked at the rising moon, visible though the sun was still low in the trees to the West. _His_ trees. He brought the sword around and took it in his curled hand. Lusis winced from nearby him, because there were few ways in which he could do that without cutting himself.

She backed up a step because the furnace began to rise from steady yellow candle-flame to leaping fire, and slowly, inexorably, to starlight as he spoke in elven. None but the three elves in his company understood. They collectively took steps back from him. The sun sank deeper in the trees.

The Elfking held up the sword, for it seemed lighter and lighter, as if pulled heavenward by the moon rise overhead. Its steel was brighter by the moment, until the Elfking shut his eyes, his voice echoed across the waters, and called Merilin's section from the trees. They stood on the shore to watch. The sword glided up through his hand. Lusis wasn't the only one clambering back from him. The sword had become so bright it had more in common with a fallen star than a thing of this earth, and, of course, to her dark eyes, the star inside of his chest fed that light.

When the blade's tip left his fingers, the sword hovered in air above his hand. His sibilant voice was now in the water and woods, it filled the air around him with a deep music. He glowed with bright moonlight, now lit like a pillar, rather than an elf. And he opened his fingertips a fraction. The sword slammed down into the ground, and all that light, which had gathered like ice crystals in the moon, collapsed down into the King and the blade, and shot out into the ground and water. It ran out in all directions with a crack like a thunderclap. And in that sudden rush of light, Lusis saw something awful burning in the whiteness rolling through the lake.

As soon as her eyes hit them, she was in a struggle to breathe, and had to fight the squeeze at her neck. But it was far, far less terrible than it might have been. The power of the King burned the worst of it away.

But not all of it.

The King yanked his sword from the shore and spun it in air. He had become his normal self again, but the sword was white as a lily petal when he slid it back to its scabbard. Vines of wood grew out from where the sword had struck. He walked away with them climbing higher and higher in air.

Lusis followed him closely. "What was that, Elvenking?"

"My will." He said.

Her voice dropped, "My Lord, did you see what I did out in the water?"

"Shadows standing on the waves," he told her quietly. "You saw?"

"Shadows like buoys, just standing in the water." Lusis couldn't clear her head of the image. "Your light obliterated some of them, but the rest fled."

"Yes," he told her. "Shadows. Shadows with the eyes of _men_. They did not follow us. They were already here. _Someone_ neglected to tell us so."

Kasia was in a daze when he reached the Elfking. He gestured at the silvery threads of light fading in air, "My Lord?"

"I have claimed the land and water hereabouts." The Elfking told him. "I am granted not just the rivers and forest, but this lake, this land, and the leagues between here and the wood."

Cardoc stood stupefied a few steps on. "That was astonishing."

"I have seen astonishing things," the Elfking exhaled his prickliness, "that was not one." He passed through a very large throng of humans who didn't seem to know how to act now – not how to react to what they'd seen, or to the great pale creation that pushed through them. He found his way to a hitching post in the packed yard.

He swung up onto it, and stood on top with ease, even though the top was only slightly wider than a man's open hands. "Hear me," he told the humans. "There are beasts like men abroad on the water. Creatures out of shadow and nightmare. In the day, it is possible they may be detected, but a shadow in the night is a hard thing to perceive. I suspect that this is how they took the barges in the dark. So it is my command that you depart from here, quickly. Lock in for the night and whatever sentiment you have for what has come to pass tonight, trouble me no more with lingering in this dangerous place." He stepped down and cut through the humans, a silver scythe.

There was a sudden eruption of muttering in the crowd.

"Gather the splinter of your section." The King instructed Merilin as the section head arrived. "We hunt tonight."

"How do we kill a shadow, my Lord?"

"They did not survive King's Light." The Elfking caught hold of Lusis' cloak and pulled her along with him when there was danger that town's people would push her aside. Or she would wander away. "Bring your swords to me."

Inside Kasia's manor, the King laid all the swords out on the well-appointed table. Elven steel so beautiful and bright it took the breath away. He pressed the flat of his hands onto them two at a time and gave them a blessing of his grace. He circled the table to Redd's sword and replaced it with elven steel in comparable size. "It must hold my favor. Human steel is not as good for that, as elf. Will you accept this Redd Ayesir?"

"It'd be an honour," Redd smiled, "as it is to hunt with you, Elfking."

The Elfking handed over a sword to Redd and swept past Kasia and his Council for the night with a quick, "Don't wait up." Before they escaped into the emptying yard.

**Continued in Part 2. Thank you!**


	2. The Cord - Part 2 (end)

**Continued from The Cord - Part 1**.

Lusis found no footsteps in the muck as she toured the perimeter of the lake. She could see the light of the elves. They'd released boats into the water and bounded across the lake on them. Their swords glinted with the King's blessing as they went. She had a sinking feeling that none of the shades would be abroad tonight, wherever they came from. Not with such a show of power out in the land. Elves coursed everywhere with bright, terrible swords, and the land was aglow with the King's authority.

She felt there would be no deaths on the Elfking's land. But outside of it? Bets were off.

She didn't know how she might tell where his influence ended, but it seemed safe to guess he knew the maps well enough to stop at the edge of town, assuming he could control such things. All the lake was his, which made hunting there problematic. But she and Redd loped from Lake Township and into a lakeshore community called Jetty. It was more of a large collection of shacks knitted into a city with long boats at the jetties. Fishermen, by all appearances.

There were a lot of men in the streets talking about the light. Many more bundled around a bar. Rumours flew – _everything_ from an attack by the 'treacherous' elves of Mirkwood, fear that the widely held rumour was true and the Lonely Mountain was full of Dragon's eggs, right down to wizards fighting abroad in Lake Township, hadn't they seen similar lights from Dol Guldur? They gave her a hard look when she loped down their main street. They saw the elven make of her sword and kept back. What gave her no trouble, Lusis gave no attention.

The road bent inland, and she passed through a nameless camp. It was close quarters here, smelt like smoke and vegetables going bad, and looked to be populated, almost entirely, by men.

"Where are you going, little girl." A gruff voice shouted after her.

A man just ahead asked, "Why are you running?"

All the better for them to chase her. But she got no further because he got down and leaned his shoulder into her and she literally bounced off his heft and skittered back several feet.

"I seem to be turned around," she told the big man in a threadbare shirt. "What is the name of this place? Does it have a name?"

"It's called Paradise," the man chuckled. "Here. Let me show you."

He advanced on her, and Lusis took out the sword and sliced off his beard in one quick stroke, she stepped in and cut his boot laces on the next. Whirling low, she ducked under him and knocked him off his feet. He landed with a splatter in the muck.

"No need. Paradise. Got it."

Another man came out of her peripheral vision and Lusis only just ducked his swing. She turned and slammed her heel into his forehead. His eyes rolled before he fell down.

Redd walked through the camp behind her. "Are you done?"

"Thugs. Nothing to bother the King with, I think. On the surface of things, at least."

The next man to come for her got pinned to a tree with an elf arrow. Nimpeth stood up in the blowing limbs up above and threw herself across the moonlit sky to the next.

"King?" Someone muttered, but Lusis continued onward with Redd after that. She'd planted the rumour, and schooled a few thugs, and that was all she had time for.

She raced on to a place called Spear Head. It was a natural structure in the land, misty because it thrust out into the lake. It was little more than a tent town. A man set dogs after her as soon as she set foot on the strand. Lusis was fast and brutal, but she wasn't faster than an attack dog. They were hard to kill when they were close on a person. She bolted aside into the water.

The dogs fell before elf-shot, which was a smaller form of arrow, often hand-thrown.

She came out onto the spit again. The silhouette of a massive man stood with several others coming behind them. They had knives rather than swords.

"Smugglers?" she asked them. "Murderers?"

No one answered her, and she hadn't expected them to. They just drew in toward her in the gloom, picking up speed and force. She glanced over her shoulder at Redd and said, "_Here_ we spill some blood." She saw, quite unexpectedly, that they had Ewon standing, quite calmly, with them.

There were nearly forty men in the tent camp of Spear Head. Not one of them came away unscathed. Ewon bounded out of sight into the water after three who fled through the shadows and then jagged into the wood to answer Nimpeth's battle cry.

The night went like that. They went around the lake and left a mark in the criminal element there, testing how serious they might be, and who was begging to be wiped off the local map.

But there was no sign of any shade in the area. At the side of the lake closest the Lonely Mountain, her group met with the Elfking's. Lusis was a bit alarmed by this as she'd assumed he'd have been resting after the exertions of earlier in the night, but he stood, a silver beacon in the moonlight.

"He's like a bleeding big target," Redd took off his cloak, rushed up to the King and threw it over the glowing outfit. He pulled it closed around the Elfking, yanked up the hood, and scolded the section with the King. "_Stars_, he _glows in the dark_. He'll be cut down. Someone needs to take him home."

Under the hood she could see the Elfking smirk. He had a great tolerance for Redd, thankfully. That elven head raised a fraction. "I have been out all night, Ranger."

"And it's time you go home. These people have spears, bows, there are harpoons out here, my Lord. Distance weapons."

The King folded back the hood, his vambraces silvery bright. His blue-silver eyes found Redd. "Easy, Ranger. I am sound."

"We're grateful," Lusis told him and glanced at random, threatening motions in the gloom around her – a bird flush _here_, and the glint of light on water that might have been off an edge _there_. She was in the teeth of that cleaver-happy state Rangers experienced after they'd run through rolling battles all night long. It made them aggressive, and overprotective. "But you are King. You've done much to secure the land, tonight. Let us do _our_ work."

He gestured at the Eastern sky. "Your work is done. The light from the Tree is nigh." The sun began to paint the sky.

It was decided from there. The King, the second splinter of the section of elves, and the Rangers took the straightest route back. The sun rose as they arrived at Kasia's dockyards. The King made his way into Jan Kasia's yard, quietly. Relative to how he generally looked, he was filthy – with a splash of mud across the base of his cloak, and blood spray across his temples.

He came up the steps and into the great hall at Kasia's to find the Council was still meeting. They looked at him, at the smoke and river-water on his silver garb, the blood splatter that dotted his cheek and circlet and clung to the blond hair at his temple, and got to their feet.

"Wel-welcome back, my Lord." Cardoc, the Master of Lumber, made a decent bow and looked at the blood on him.

The Elfking swung his sword out of its sheath, pinched the edge, and pitched it to Amathon for cleaning. The red-haired elf caught it deftly. In fact, the Elvenking finished stripping weapons from himself only when he was halfway through the room.

He threw off the wool cloak and folded it over the couch, "My thanks, Redd."

Redd actually stopped and bowed to him, which he noted with that practiced disinterest of his – that illusion that it all but missed his attention, when these things really never did.

The Elfking stopped at the fire and waited.

It was a matter of seconds before Ewon put a goblet of wine into his hands and Nimpeth started tugging the straps on his breastplate and pauldrons. His tall and powerful body jerked a little, once in a while, with their quick tugs. Amathon got his vambraces one-by-one, so the King could keep sipping his wine. They worked while he was talking. "There will be some… confusion at full daylight. We have had some… presence in the Long Lake area. They are aware of us. That should not slow us any. Get me the Master's books… I suppose. _Bother_." His white teeth flashed at the fire.

"What about the Master House?" Nema stopped watching him move, which she greatly enjoyed, and asked curiously. "A large manor house, beautiful, with extensive gardens and-"

Avonne trundled into the room and went to hug her father, but then she went to stand, as straight as she could, beside the Elfking and he adroitly bent to pick her up. She turned his head with her small hands, leaned back from him, and pointed at the blood on his face curiously.

His eyes widened a little, and the soft smile he gave her was, at least, not doll-like in its beauty. "It is not mine. But you are right, Avonne-iell. One cannot stand around the house, filthy."

Lusis stifled a smile at his definition of filthy, but looked down at the Council. "I don't think he will be going anywhere." She glanced at the Elite guard, who were now laying out the armour they'd removed from their Lord, for inspection. "The elves have figured out how to secure this place. That's work they probably won't want to do over."

The Elfking's silver eyes flashed, "Does the Master House have staff?"

"Not anymore," Nema nodded, "after the third murder, it has stood deserted."

The Elfking set down his empty goblet, "It will be shocking to hear, I'm sure, but I need a staff." The elf's brows went up in amusement.

Kasia actually laughed at the sound of that, but it didn't seem to bother the Elfking, who went to the man and handed him his sleepy daughter with a few rolling words in elven that he then translated as, "Here is the light of your house." He exhaled. "I am for bed." His clothes swirled as he turned and withdrew up the stairs.

Nema nodded, her brows slowly rising on her forehead as she stirred her tea and muttered. "There were _never_ truer words."

All the men in the Council glanced in her direction and she shrugged.

She chortled into her tea, "You can believe me, gentlemen."

Avonne rubbed her eye and called out, "Happy daydreams, Thranduil-_ada_."

"What did she call him?" Kasia asked nervously. "Avonne, what did you call him?"

But no one answered him, and the Elfking's reply was a soft, low croon of elvish as he vanished from the stairs.

Lusis glanced down at Avonne's huge eyes, aware of how very rare it was that someone would _touch_ the Elfking, let alone turn his head to face them, and to say his given name aloud. She was a very fortunate little girl.

She also smiled, waved at Lusis and Redd, and wished them a good morning.

They had two hours of sleep.

She dreamt that Icar called to her.

But she couldn't find him in the woods.

It made her heart hammer.

In contrast, the Elfking was fresh as a daisy.

He pulled his hair back under his circlet and stretched as he exited his rooms. Lusis had slept in her bath and dragged along behind him. He was in a golden velvet wrap over palest spring green today. She knew the clothes were new, because she'd stopped an elf from a section she didn't know from delivering them when she'd woken up on her bench.

He sat on the bench to wait for her to get her sword rigging on. She dressed in the room that had been intended for Nimpeth, with the door open so she could keep an eye on him. She'd put on some muscle mass in the last weeks and she had had to make adjustments for the changes in her physique. No one was bringing her new clothes.

It seemed bizarre to her that he sat and waited, but he had grown used to her habit of being his shadow by now. He no longer questioned it. He looked flatly unconcerned. And superb. Particularly with the shining pin on the shirt he wore. It was an opal, as suited his colouration, in a beautiful entwining of Mithril antlers. He pushed his hair over his shoulders in that disconnected way he always had with his hair, messing with its symmetry, and she ducked out and scooped it back to place, just as one of his Elites would have done.

Her face flamed as she tucked back into the room again, and started to strap on her knives. It had been reflex. Because elves – endless numbers of elves – were constantly smoothing his clothes to perfection, touching his hair to proper position, arranging his circlet or Living Crown, their hands scarcely brushed him, but they fixated on his every detail.

He met this with indifference. But it was in her blood now. She knew how _the hair_ was _supposed_ to look, and she automatically put it that way.

When she turned again, he was shoving it back.

She sectioned it out and smoothed it to place.

His brows went up a little.

She gave the silken hanks of silvery hair she held gentle tugs. "Leave it." She straightened and fished for the other end of her knife belt, "I think you're doing it to drive me to distraction."

Her belt tugged taut. He'd fastened it and now looked up at her. "It is rare, Lusis, that you look unhappy. This morning is the first I remember it."

She looked at his upturned face in the sun.

He said, "I will need all of our number today to be at their best. I cannot have that if your worries about your men, afield, preoccupy your mind."

She felt her eyes widen, "How did you know?"

"One need only know you." He smoothed the tongue of her belt under its loops in a motion so gentle, she hardly felt it. And she allowed his silver hair to slide through her fingers. Avonne was right. His hair was blissfully soft. She felt full of _light_, just arranging it.

"I will give you my best, Elvenking," she told him. "You have my word." She stepped aside for him and he got to his feet.

They passed Redd, who was politely standing just inside his open doorway. He stepped out behind Lusis and muttered, "Morning, Lus."

"Morning." She fell several steps behind the King, as was proper.

He noted, "I wasn't lurking about. I just… didn't want to disturb you two."

She nodded and told him between her teeth, "Don't be stupid."

"Why is that stupid?" asked Redd. "However it is meant, Lusis, he waits for you. He listens to you. I think that deserves some privacy and respect."

Then they were at the staircase and met by the elves. Ewon's head tipped to take Lusis in and give her a customary nod 'good morning'. Nimpeth and Amathon stood at the head of the stairs. Lusis could hear a dull roar of people beyond it. Something was going on. The King stood in a quick information exchange with Ewon, all in elven.

He looked at Redd and Lusis. "Today will be eventful. Are you ready?"

Lusis did a quick check of her gear, and straightened.

Redd actually went into Aric's room and came out with an axe strapped to his chest, which was terrifying, because Redd was taller than the Elfking as it was, monstrously muscled, and was now wearing a full-sized axe. The elves, she swore, just stared at it in blank disbelief. "Just in case of trouble."

"Or in anticipation of a large, incensed forest attacking us," Amathon said, and received an entertained and yet reprimanding look from his wife.

The King nearly smiled at this, charmed, which was a rare gift. He looked so young then.

Redd also handed over a bow and bow-harness to Lusis, and a quiver of arrows she slung at her side.

When this was completed, the elves armed their King. This was done by several elves that Lusis didn't yet know. The upstairs maids stood staring as they fastened on a breastplate no one had yet seen – steel brushed to look like he was enfolded with leaves, and two beautiful leaf pauldrons, all of it silvery and veined with softest green. The vambraces matched, as did the steel greaves and sabatons.

"Stop fussing." The Elfking said after a moment.

Deft hands folded his cloak at his shoulder, unfolded, and folded it more tightly. Seconds passed in a flurry of enjoyably scented motion.

"_Ai_, I've not changed." The Elfking murmured, "You have the measure of me."

"You yet grow taller," Ewon added to this a quiet, "like a weed, My Lord." His Elite corralled the crystal-blond hair that fell onto the King's breastplate adroitly, hardly even touching it.

The Elfking sucked in a deep breath and opened his arms, "Leave it. Leave me. Enough."

But there was a feeling among the elves that this was a big day, and that they would not let their King appear to be anything but a specimen of physical excellence.

And they'd done a good job of it.

He was dizzying.

Then they were done, and they walked down the stairs with Nimpeth in the lead, Ewon and Amathon next, the King, and the Rangers – Lusis and Redd.

The table had been moved aside, and the room was full of humans, all of whom either stopped speaking or outright gasped as the King came down the steps. He paused on the landing, radiant, and looked over all the humans. All could see him shut his pale eyes. He… wasn't sure what to do with them. They weren't elves, which, obviously, would be the thing he understood best.

What did one do when faced with a room full of elves and men? One persevered.

He exhaled, his head rising as he opened his eyes again. "Why are you all in such disarray?"

Hats swept off human heads. Men tried, hastily, to straighten. The Elfking's blond head tipped. He'd meant the thronging of them. In the Halls, they had the good sense to _line up_, at the very least, so that the orderly minds of the elves knew how to address them.

Kasia walked through his double doors, calling out a jolly, "Coming through!"

He went to the table, which was now cleared, and set down a large book. The Elfking glanced at it and Kasia dusted off his hands and gave a merry bow. "Good morning, King. These are the Master's books."

"Sire," a soft-spoken man at the front of the crowd twisted his wool tam in his hands. "Sire, you need to come outside. It will be easier to show you the problem than to… talk about it."

"_Thand_, _henig_. Yes, child. I know what the problem is." Thranduil told the boy, for this man was little more than a boy. The Elfking did, however, make for the door with a backward glance at Kasia. "Secure that book."

The man gestured at his staff and hurried after the King, excitedly.

The yard, outside, was being vigorously cleared by men with clippers and shears. It was overrun with several types of wild strawberry runners full of white flowers. The main building for the dockyard was covered in whorls of ivy and vines that were busy making flowers. Bees shot among them.

The Elfking followed the men through their building, whose windows were threaded with growing vines, and out to the green-shot dockyards covered in birds. Lily pads floated across the lake, thick enough that one splinter of Merilin's section stood out in them, and when he arrived, the light pushed so many of the water flowers open that it looked like the opening gestures of a ballroom dance.

Pollen whisked through air and dotted the Elfking with motes of gold.

The land leading to the docs was speared with young trees, apart from that curiosity towering where the Elfking's sword had pierced the land. Its massive roots spread in a white circle, and the canopy shaded land and even a stretch of river. It was _magnificent_. Lusis knew that beech trees did not usually tend to white bark, but there were many stands of white beech in Mirkwood, and now, one here, already in bloom and dropping down silvery-green nuts. Overnight. A warm wind brushed the leaves and birds exploded through air. At the docs, a girl put down a basket and it came up flashing with the bellies of fish.

The road on his right was dotted with pretty stands of aspen saplings and flush with flowers.

Rabbits darted between them.

"Do you see, sire?" The young man asked him. "I sweep the streets, you know, the people here are the team that keeps them clean and-" he gestured at the dirt road stands of trees.

Kasia stood with Lusis, and, like her, he marveled like a child at the abundance around them. Now he laughed, "So _this_ is why there are fresh apple tarts underway in the kitchen." He turned to the King, "I went for a drink and the chefs had been going since the small hours of the morning, making berry jam. And they brought up fresh grilled tomato slices an hour before daylight." He had to put a hand over his mouth to keep from babbling, or bubbling with laughter, or gaping at the Elfking.

"You were warned," was all the Elfking said. "If you'd wanted the land the way it had been, you should have done as I instructed and chosen a Master. Not an Elfking." Birds shot through air and whirled around his figure for a moment, before vanishing into the sky. He watched them fondly.

The girl at the doc lifted another basket of fish from the lake and dusted her hands. She grinned at the King and then squinted at the sun above.

Lusis was beaming at the mild wind and sudden tumbling of buttercup yellow and sky blue butterflies overhead – she'd last seen them in the Halls. "Maybe if you got a goblin king, this place would be more to your liking?" A trio of ladybugs settled on the back of her fingertips. She laughed and released them into the breeze.

Kuril Farna was one of the men on the Council. He was young, for their number, but very bright. He was the head of a Guild of Traders, and now he wiped off his hands and walked up the steps to the wood dock. "We can't get anything through the streets." Belatedly, he ducked his head to the King, his cheeks red at meeting such a glorious creature.

The Elfking pivoted, his white-gold hair fanning around him. "Redd, take your axe and cut down the silver tree. With time, that will return the land to its original state." He glanced from Kasia to Farna and said, "Men. You do not know _the hardship_ of what you wish for."

The King stepped away. Birds chased behind him, tumbling through air.

For a moment, Redd didn't move a millimeter. And then he dropped down to one knee. He looked up at the King and said, "My Lord, can I beg just one thing of you?"

The King turned and Lusis squeezed Redd's shoulder – she had no idea what he was about to do, and wanted to protect the big man. Redd's hands opened before him, "Please don't make me cut down the tree. I'd rather go through town and take up every single sapling and plant them in the woods, than harm a twig on that tree."

Now the Elfking simply stared at Redd. He glided toward the man and cocked his head over the Ranger. The silence was punctuated by birdsong, wind, and lapping waves and then the Elfking said, "That tree is a child of the same forces alive inside of me." There was a long pause during which, Lusis swore, the King looked _gentle_. "You would rather take up the work of this _entire town_ than to cut it?"

Redd told him, "My Lord, I wouldn't even pick a leaf."

The Elfking's lips curved a fraction, "And what will we do for the streets?"

He thought a moment, "Well, if everyone along the stretch, my Lord, helps us to remove the trees, we can have order again. And… if they come back… well don't the elves use stone for this reason? Is that not why you took the caverns?"

The Elfking's brows rose, "Oh, very good. And yes. If the streets were stone the growth would not again threaten to overrun them. But caring for this garden, it will ever require effort and management. Unless the tree is broken."

"The hell we'll break that tree." Kasia laughed at the thought.

Farna nodded, "We will _not_, uhm, _Elfking_. Doing that great silver tree harm _wasn't_ the intention. I… I don't dislike this new… abundance, I suppose you'd say. I just need to be able to get people to trading. And… the lilies are so thick they're keeping people from leaving port."

Most of the water lilies were cut away and taken to the shore, though they endured in the fringes, making the air smell sweet and light. Oddly enough, one of the splinter section explained how to harvest the lily as a food plant. The roots could be dried and milled for flour. The seeds were baked and put onto bread. And the young leaves were used in salads. The humans, prior to this, had really only ever used them for healing. The elves had some of this knowledge. Lily was used during pregnancy.

Clearing the streets was a matter of digging up the small saplings. This was a huge undertaking and not all of the trees survived the effort, but the city Council had an idea of where to relocate them. They created a great stand of them in the directions that the worst of the winter blasts generally used to come into town. The opposite bank of the river was fortified with woodlands, and now they protected their flank with what they hoped would grow into a tall white forest one day.

The Elfking had felt this arrangement could _never_ work. But struggle by struggle, human adaptability and inventiveness seemed to win out against the great differences between their races.

The boats went out by midmorning. The streets were cleared by afternoon. The Council had traded with Iron Hills dwarves in the area for carts of crushed stone, and, by nightfall, the business district was alive with people raking stone down on the streets.

And the Elfking still hadn't eaten. He walked a long stone street with Lusis as it was finishing up and his silver-moonlit eyes scanned the night beyond the buildings. He was looking for the enemy.

"There was a lot of grumbling from the Trader's Guild today, about the dwarves of the Iron Hills not wanting to trade with you." She said quietly.

"They are businessmen, trade will endure," said the Elfking, "and I care not of them."

"They're not too fond of you, either," she remembered that Kuril Farna had been pale from hearing what they'd had to say about the King of Mirkwood.

He paused to glance down at her and his expression was melancholy. "You see… some of my greatest mistakes have had to do with their kind."

"And I'm sure some of their own had to do with yours," she told him her experience of the world as she noted. "Most are not more sinned-against than sinning."

His voice was faint in the air as he turned away, but she made out the words, "You are kind."

They continued along the even stones of the road, and the Elfking looked pleased. He hadn't lied when he'd said that managing the new plenty of the land was going to be an ongoing task. But given a choice between plenty and not enough, Lake Township had chosen, she thought, properly. In fact, they'd built a small yard and circular guard post around the Silver Tree. Not that it had much to fear of being broken at the moment. It would have taken days to cut through it, and teams of horses to pull it down after it had been partially cut.

The nuts were being harvested. Kasia and the Council had kept some of the first. Lusis had one in her pocket, in fact. Part of the essence of it was his essence, and she would, she knew, prize it for that, for the rest of her days.

He looked down at Lusis. "When I claimed the land, you saw the shades with the eyes of men. I did notice that you couldn't breathe, then. We will need to take care of you around the enemy."

"This is a far way away from the site of my attack," she frowned. "I felt safe here, when I first arrived in this place."

The Elfking refused to look at her. "You are not safe anywhere."

Lusis felt herself shrink from those words.

"You forget again," he exhaled night air. "There are two ends to the sword, Lusis Buckmaster. There is the end that you did point to Framsberg where the Anduin begins, and the end you pointed at Erebor, no matter what I did. You were not content with the lay of the sword until you'd lined up both. Were… were you not aware?"

She hadn't been. "So. The second problem I've found with thinking of a sword only as a weapon is that you weigh the ends differently. In most cases," she lashed out the elf sword, "you only ever think of the business end – the part that does all the damage. You're counting on it to do the damage, and it is hard, but needs a lot of care. It's hard, but can break. You are not generally looking at and focusing on the hilt. The part you rarely use to harm others, but that is the way you protect yourself." She rubbed her arms. She'd pointed it at Erebor, even when he tried to change that.

He nodded at her assessment and they reached a part of the road from which they could see the Lonely Mountain under the moon.

"What's in that place?" She turned from staring at the cold, frozen peak of the mountain to the cold and frozen elf behind her. And he relented.

"I was only ever inside those great halls once," he told her. "It would never be necessary to travel there, not for an elf King. But I had made a purchase of stones and metal work there, which was… withheld. And when I went in, they took me a long way around from the gates. They took me to a large hall to the right, which is not used by dwarves. It is for those who come to buy and sell, for men, and," his eyes narrowed in remembered annoyance, "Elfkings. Their main hall – that long blue walk – is for their own kind in the way that Lorien is, I suppose, for elves alone. And it was a long walk. But there is no way to mind a long walk in a new place, when that place is _magnificent_. The whole way, I could smell the fires of dwarves, hear their rumbling and singing, and the smell of meat was everywhere. Their kitchens ran all day and all night," he made a burble of humour, "just like their smelters. Ah, but the deeper you go, the more the nerves play upon you – whether you can trust your wellbeing… to a dwarf. When you came in the Halls, I'm sure you thought the same."

"A little," she confessed, "but you were such kind hosts, I got past it."

"The dwarves are capable of great benevolence, I am told. Mostly by my son. They are capable of great amity. Such was not in evidence that day. Thrain was seized by some strange spirit." He looked to the mountain with the wind billowing through his hair, "The Arkenstone – a stone such as one can only find if they pull out a mountain's very heart. The very quintessence of it. But dwarves are not meant to be _mountains_, Lusis, as elves are not meant to be _stars_. And I had seen dwarves slay a King of elves before – a _High_ King, not a beast like me – a High King who died in the very same kind of failed exchange. And so all hope of enterprise was lost in those few hours of entering, and marveling, and – _stars_ – all the _waiting_. They choose things I am _not_ good at. I was the wrong one for the venture. Oh, but when they took me to the thrones, I went by way of an elevated walk. Below me there was an _ocean_ of gold miles deep that had run so high it was a hand's span under the bridge. It will not be emptied. Not in this Age, and not in the next." The elf shook his head, unable to properly explain. He stared at the mountain, "It is a place of beauty, majesty, and enticement, and it is not good for dwarf, man, or elf." He glanced her way. "As to what's inside there now? Well. There is gold. There are gemstones of all kinds. There are worked metals I paid for, somewhere. And, they say, the bones of a dragon, which I doubt. Once you kill a dragon, Lusis, its bones keep turning up in your way. Again and again. As long as you live."

She looked at his breastplate and then up again, to him. She frequently saw a star in there. "You killed a dragon."

"I killed a few." He told her and then his eyes narrowed and he leaned in closer to her. "Only one _completely_ on my own." She jumped from his sudden nearness and he pulled back, amused. It was the kind of fun he would normally save for someone like Avonne. She felt tongue-tied as he continued walking, and she followed him.

"And maybe a new enemy? Maybe that's what's inside?" she asked him quietly, and felt along the silver necklace she wore. It was probably a bad sign that he didn't answer her, even though she knew he heard.

They came to where the crushed stone ended and the Elfking crouched down to touch the bell of a flower. "Ah there," his fingertips smoothed a petal, "and you can come no further, little one." He stretched as he straightened.

"Enemies, then," she exhaled and looked at the mountain.

He didn't answer her, so she followed the Elfking back to their lodgings.

And supper.

It was two mornings before she saw the Elfking abroad again. She was outside his room in the morning, and saw him depart for the day, and then, after that, he would dismiss her to some project taking place in the outdoors. Her dark hair began to show strands of honey-colour from the sun. Her pale Northern Ranger skin started to turn a buttery colour. That's how long she was outside in those two days.

Much changed in Lake Township.

Firstly, they'd never had such a booming spring, and with the industry this brought on, there wouldn't have been a need for the Elfking to expend any more energy on this place.

Except the Council kept bringing him things.

Particularly as the problem of rising crime and disorder fell away.

At night, Lusis noticed there were open windows, and she could hear the sounds of music, laughter, and families being themselves. Friends milled in the outdoors. The human forces that policed this place no longer minced through the streets at night, taking heavy losses on the shrinking edges of their land. Their numbers, which had been dangerously low, began to rise again, since first one section, and then two, patrolled the new land belonging to the Elfking.

A slow trickle of gratitude began. Elves from the sections were seldom spotted by men, but when they were, they were treated benignly – not in a friendly way, but not in an unfriendly way either. They were mindfully watched, and not interfered with. Some people left out flowers in the square where one section swapped for another during afternoon and at midnight.

Then there was the Elfking.

At dawn on the third day women showed up with bolts of hand-embroidered cotton and a very soft wool cloak, both in a sheer, pale green. She folded them on the steps of Kasia's manor, nodded to herself, and walked away. A boy and his father came with a cask of wine a half an hour later. The wine was made out of apples and sunny and light – Lusis knew because she later got to have a glass. Just before full sunrise, several young girls came to the steps with chains of flowers, but there were more that came while Lusis was occupied elsewhere.

Shortly after that, the Elfking emerged and looked, immediately, to the North East, toward the Lonely Mountain. By then, Lusis had been working for four hours, and had stopped at the station set up in the yard for two things – water in a catchment with a chain so workers could douse themselves, and something to eat. It was hot after four hours of work in good weather.

She was down to her undershirt, and saturated when he came out the double-doors. She picked up her chain shirt and coat and walked in his direction. "My Lord, it's a fine day outside if you'd like a walk." Maybe a break. He didn't relish the endless paperwork of rule.

His eyes found her immediately. "You never wander far," he scanned the scars on her shoulder and midriff. Elves didn't scar often. She felt self-conscious, though not about the knit of old wounds, she'd own every one of those, but that she wasn't _sure_ how she looked then – saturated, bare shouldered, and tan. Unlike herself, she thought, she doubted _he_ could tan, or fully understood what had happened to make her more golden. It was more likely he absorbed light and then radiated it back like a pretty white mushroom. This made her grin at him. He looked like a fountain of silver and pale blue today, with the blue-silver breastplate. His head tipped, "Something has made you happy."

"I haven't seen you in a while," she bowed to him. "Life hasn't been sufficiently challenging."

His eyes widened, his brows went up, "Be careful what you ask for, Lusis Buckmaster."

"Some people are worried you haven't been thanked properly." She gestured at the gifts on the step. The Elfking went to see them and folded gracefully down to feel the wool.

"Ah, so soft."

"They have a particular type of sheep in these parts," Lusis sipped her drink and glanced back to the men and women she'd just been moving crates with. They seemed shocked to see her talking to The White Elf, as most of them called him.

When she returned her attention to him, his fingertips smoothed the flower-garlands with the kind of loving attentiveness that she'd only ever seen in Silvan elves before. They were fleeting, flower-garlands. Fading within a night. But the collection of petals, the softness, and fragility of them, and the links to the land, all appealed to the elves.

But the Elfking's fingers stopped when he discovered glowing chips of metal, white as star-points, in the same basket. He rose and slipped the garland back into place and then told Nimpeth, "Take these up to my room."

She followed his directions and Lusis thought nothing of it.

Instead, she picked up her sword from the main building on the way in and followed the King. Though the rooms were busy, no one hailed him, people tried not to look at him at all. They were afraid of him, and the great and wonderful 'magic' he'd done in nature had made that fear even deeper still. Failing to find Kasia, the Elfking went straight through the front and out under the awning that had been extended over part of the dock.

He made it two steps before the bottle flew at him. And, being what he was, he caught it, stared at the burning rag tucked in the top, and said of the wine. "What a waste this is." He set the burning thing down on the dock's sudden disarray. Work had ground to a stop. That was mostly because as soon as the King had stopped the bottle in air, Lusis had stopped the man throwing it.

All the worry she felt for her men heading back, she prayed, from the North, and all the stress, fretting about elves in such close proximity to men, day-by-day, just burst out of her. She'd taken two quick steps, caught the bar of the awning, and slammed her foot into the face of the man who'd done the throwing. He had fallen down, unconscious, and she'd landed with a foot to either side of his head, but the two men with him had taken off running. She chased one down in just a couple of steps, tripped him, and hit him in the face until he tumbled from consciousness.

The other man dropped down a few paces away. She glanced back at the dock and saw the King hand a bow back to the forces man who had been running to respond to the disturbance.

"Arrest them!" Lusis got to her feet, realized her hands were bloody and wiped them in the man's shirt. She hopped up on the dock again. _Furious_. Someone who had also doused the rag poured water over her hands just moments after. The Elfking glanced her way and went back inside.

Kasia had come running and nearly slid into the Elfking. "What happened!? They said someone attacked you," he held out both hands almost as if he would take the Elfking by the shoulders, but the King's averted glance down at his hands stopped him from doing that. "What did they do to you?"

"They tried to set a fire," he said dryly to the man. "Then two fell before Lusis. The third I shot through the eye." His silver eyes flashed at Kasia, and his voice cracked through the main room. "Master of Boats, I am not _built_ with a temper that can tolerate crude and puerile protests to my rule."

In fact two of the men were dragged into the main room with them. They were bleeding, groggy, but awake.

"You unnatural thing! You're the reason for the change in the land _and_ the trouble on the mountain!" One of them shouted, "Why are you _really_ here? Are you after the gold?"

Ewon stepped out from behind the Elfking and nocked an arrow.

"Peace," the Elfking said and then glanced at Lusis. "I preferred him silent."

"Coming right up." She hopped over an intervening barrel, caught the man by the shoulder of his shirt, and swept his feet out from under him. She planted a foot on his chest when he tried to struggle up again, and pressed down. "Once we get your name, you trash, we will find out where you came from and if there are more like you, I assure you of that. Until then, stop talking to the King. You'll be questioned soon enough. Save it for then."

The forces dragged them through to the yard. They would be moved downhill to be locked away. Though it seemed like the Elfking would have preferred their heads for their insolence. He spent the next several hours with the Council, and, this time, Lusis and Ewon both stayed beside him.

They met in a room that overlooked the lake and incoming Forest River.

The Elfking didn't care for a seat at the long table, since the windows were so huge, he swept over to them and paced along them for the duration. Lusis stayed on one side of the glass, and Ewon the other. They were ready to get to the King if any incoming arrows should come from the dock or waters below. But they also had to monitor the door. Ewon, therefore, spent the entire time with an arrow ready for nock on his bow. Lusis kept her sword in hand.

It was difficult for the Council to reconcile that they had essentially 'voted in' the power of a King. Kasia rubbed his cheek, "You see, this school hasn't been built, not because of a shortage of funds, but because, factually, there is a land dispute over the pair of fields that abut the land we must use. There are bitter politics between two land owners."

Cardoc growled, "We've been trying to settle it for the better part of a year."

Now Nema got to her feet and smiled at the pacing King. She loved to be near him, never tired of looking at him, Nema, and considered him living art. "I sent in several girls. That's why we've gotten as far as we have, getting the stone onto the site, and the lumber stored there. My girls are very good, my Lord."

He sounded cold. "Then I am _outstanding_." He walked to the table, picked up a pen, and made a beautiful elven scrawl of his name on the page. "Because it is _my_ land. Begin building as soon as possible." The power of a King was absolute and immediate. It did not care about settling petty disputes. It cut through debate and struck like lightning.

It filled them with both exhilaration and dismay, that power. In a day a King could iron out the problems of _years_. Provided the funding was present, the land and water would not be negatively impacted, and if it fit the overall fabric of what he was trying to accomplish, he could pull a society ahead in minutes.

Ewon's bow moved for the first time in hours. It pointed at the door.

A rap sounded on the wood. "A… a message came, my, uh, Lord," said a young man beyond the door, "should I bring it in?"

The Elfking made a small, swift gesture and then a hissing exclamation. "_Confound_ this human obsession with closed doors."

What interrupted the line of sight also slowed their communication, Lusis realized. She went to the door, stood by it, and pushed the latch to let the boy in. He was smaller than she was, pale, and very afraid of the Elfking. He shivered as he stopped by the table. "My Lord, this came in from a rider." His voice cracked, which made the Elfking's head tip to one side. Apparently, that wasn't an elf puberty thing. It would seem odd until one thought of how _very_ long it might take for an elf to travel through puberty. There were no high-speed changes there.

The boy set an envelope on the table. It was long and white with a beautifully ornate seal upon it. The thing was well made, and so fair it practically sparkled on the table. Lusis looked up at the King. "Green wax with gold impression. But… everything in Mirkwood is red and gold."

The Elfking's eyes closed, "Rivendell." His silvery eyes opened again and his expression transformed. "Do you remember that High-King I told you about, Lusis?"

"I do." She glanced at the Elvenking and then down at his hands. They came up to a slow attitude of dismissal. Two handed. She glanced at the boy beside her and murmured, "Boy, leave now."

He didn't take long getting out of the room. Like a good human, he shut the door.

"This is his blood writing to my lowly self." He gave the letter such a complex look that she couldn't read it apart from determining that it was beautiful, composite, and frustrated. He said a few words in elven to Ewon who simply nodded and let the tautness out of his draw.

Lusis began to push it across the table to the Elfking, but Kasia's hand came down on the shimmering paper. "I can imagine what he'd have to say about what you've done here," Kasia's voice was critical. "But he doesn't understand our need. We of this great forest are united in ways an outsider wouldn't comprehend. And your friend elf, he is likely not going to understand your decision. That _doesn't_ make it _unwise_."

"I would expect nothing else of you," the Elfking said and a fighting knife flicked into his palm. Its long, silvery arched blade extended to the envelope between Lusis' and Kasia's hands. "But unless either of your names match the one inscribed, I will ask you to kindly take your hands away."

He slid the letter over to himself and put the fighting knife away. The seal opened with a pleasant snap and he slid out the letter and opened it in his hand. It was impossible to read his expression at that moment, because he had the glass doll features he employed to deadly effect. "So, Kasia, do you argue that Rivendell's problem is… conventional thinking?"

"I do," the man said unapologetically, but there were sounds of consent around the table.

The Elfking set down the letter. "Though… I wonder sometimes if the spies from my land in his, and his land in mine, might not meet somewhere in between Kingdoms to weep." His pale eyes found Lusis, and he very nearly smiled, "Trying to figure out what on earth they're supposed to tell their Kings."

He laid the letter on the table. It had a short series of loops on it, in handsomely exact script, right in the middle of the page. None of them in a language she could read.

Lusis knew the envelope had the given name 'Thranduil' on it, but the contents of the letter? "What does it say, my Lord?" Maybe it was about the poison in the Forest River? The human apothecaries had no leads.

The Elflord had turned and drifted to look out at the cold Lonely Mountain. "It says: _What are you doing_?"

A swell of good-humour passed through the humans at the table. They were pleased, and Kasia said, "I suppose that the last spy to report to your good friend couldn't make any sense of your growth into Long Lake."

But that's not what it meant and Lusis knew it as soon as she heard what the Rivendell elf King had had to say. _What are you doing_? It meant that he knew very well what the Elfking of Mirkwood _appeared_ to be doing, which was accepting kingship over humans at Long Lake, but was especially informed enough to know that wasn't _actually_ what he was up to. And this stranger in Rivendell was worried about the scenarios he could come up with – worried enough for this letter. Which begged the question, all of a sudden. What was he doing?

Lusis took a step back from the table. She picked up the letter and envelope and slid one into the other before she set them atop the pile of paperwork that the King would take home tonight. He'd turned to watch her with his long, silver eyes, and she remembered that Redd had told her his books said that Thranduil, King of the Great Greenwood, was crafty.

Was he being plain?

His silver eyes averted. He was listening to the Council again.

She went into his room without asking him. He was still at meetings, maybe feeding that tall, infuriating body of his, curse the man, and it was late in the night by then. Lusis was sure she should have been hunting shades.

This felt like hunting. She just didn't like her choice of quarry.

Only after acting as security on the Council meeting did she remember this. The incident with the fire-bottle throwing human had been shocking. She hadn't forgotten what the man had shouted either. _Why are you really here_? _Are you after the gold_? The gold she had seen. She was sure she'd seen.

As grateful as people were, they didn't pack up a basket and give away _gold_.

She found the basket of flower garlands and hunted through them. No good.

She took the garlands out and laid them on the floor, checking them and the basket.

That feeling at her back. That was someone. Lusis froze as soon as she realized. Her sword was on his bed. His – the King's. And what was she thinking? His elf-steel sword. Which he'd given to her, because she could be trusted, and she _didn't_ want to hurt him. She _didn't_ want to leave his side. But now….

Something struck her in the shoulder and slithered to the ground. A silver net – no it was a fortune in Mithril by the looks of it – with small Rowan berries and leaves woven into it. The door shut behind her. She wanted to turn around because elves didn't shut doors. But it was him, and she knew it. He'd followed her here.

Nothing for a moment.

No one moved through a room without a sound but an elf.

And then the bed made a soft squeak as weight hit it.

Lusis was caught, and couldn't look at him.

There was no sound. Actually, she was trying to breathe.

She figured out what she wanted to say to him in a sudden epiphany. "I don't care what you do next. What you say…. Just don't send me away, because I _can't_ go."

The Elfking's voice was under such pressure, it sounded like he might have shouted at her, if his pride could have allowed it, which it could not. "I am _very_ certain I can send you away magnificently well. Rest assured you would _never_ see the daystar again."

His voice seethed that beautiful anger of his that she didn't dare look at, and because he leaned over her, his white-golden hair swept the back of her neck and took her breath away.

Her ability to reason vanished from under her, and left her flailing in the chaos of emotion. She scrambled for purchase on something, anything, that might save her. "My King, I promised Eithahawn I would protect you with my life. I intend to do that." It rushed up the back of her throat that this association had become enthralling. She didn't ever look at the idea, and so didn't allow herself to understand it. But she was trapped by it now.

"And does that also mean violating my privacy?"

"Privacy?" She spun around and pushed her face up toward his, "Privacy – really? You leave your doors open! The lot of you. You leave your doors open when you leave for the day, open when you dress and undress, when you're lying here in the moonlight staring at the walls. There are hardly even doors at all in the Halls!"

His silver eyes narrowed because he knew he was beautiful. "A King is powerful, Lusis. A King does what he wishes." He bent over her face, furious, and draping her in the silk of his pale hair on one side. It slithered against her cheek.

"Also not true," she told him coldly. "You, _of all people_, do _not_ get to do whatever you wish. Do you think I'm blind, or stupid? Or are the powers of observation reserved for beings thousands of years old in your mind?"

His head tipped, just slightly. He was angry. She could feel heat off his skin. In fact, she'd never imagined his skin as having a temperature before. It seemed he would be cool, like touching alabaster or opal. But she felt heat as if he had a living heart inside of him. Instead of an ice-cold Arkenstone. His voice was deadly slow. Controlled. "If you do not _like_ the ways of elves, then why sleep at the door of one who is, by now, the _epitome_ of what we are?"

At that moment, she felt she could fill a library with _why_.

But only one reason actually mattered. "Eithahawn begged it of me," she raised the incredible Mithril net in her fingers. "He's _that_ fearful he could lose you. _Of course_ he loves you. You – how could he _not_ love you?"

She forced herself to sink back down on her heels and look at the Mithril net. To calm down. Her head was trying to push through the haze. It wanted to look at the 'gold'. Inaccurate, really. Mithril was a silver that was stronger than steel. Very valuable. And… in this case very delicately worked. The small chains, she realized, could stop a blade or arrow easily. Very interesting design.

Lusis kept filling the numbing silence with the chatter of her own thoughts.

Then she heard herself add, "You _should_ have taught Eithahawn to use a sword. He could have come here himself and saved you the trouble of taking my head off, or throwing me in those dungeons you keep under the Halls. I can't imagine the _anticipation_. I can't imagine the _pleasure_ you must get locking someone away… where you can direct everything, or forget about them. Your self-control. And your thirst to control everything near you… your heart is like a tower of ice." Lusis' shook her head. Her fingers closed on the glorious Mithril and made a tight fist so that the little leaves hurt her. "But that other furnace, the one inside your head is sharper than _armies_ of elves. If you taught him you would risk him. Fear. Pain. That's why not." He'd had no choice but to send his son into the War of the Ring. The Prince was a natural-born warrior. The King hadn't thought to interfere with that. So Eithahawn couldn't fight, and the warrior Elfking had laid siege to Dol Guldur, while Eithahawn had run the Kingdom in his stead. Home. Safe.

Then he leaned back away from her. She heard him take soft gasps for air, as if struck in the chest.

Lusis opened her hand and the silvered steel glittered. "Where did you get this and what is it?"

Nothing.

She shook the cursed metal, "_Find_ the air to answer me."

"That… is from Lethroneth, whom you do not know." He sounded breathless. "It is something she should not have done. But she has pride, and I have pride, and we-"

Lusis got up and turned, but she didn't look at the Elfking. "All right. Who is Lethroneth?"

"One of my finest spies."

It was easier to talk to him, fractionally, if she didn't look at him, didn't try to read his body language, and didn't have to see that face that, by now, she so deeply cared for. "She has pride.… She loves her King, I see."

But she did look. She looked at the bed. His hair was a pool. His head was bowed. His body bowed too, as if sore or injured. Lusis stepped forward and clumsily laid the Mithril onto the back of his hand. His skin was supple. And he was warm. Not like quartz at all – she backed away. "So she did what?"

"She found this piece, which was made in the mountain at my behest … and she brought it down to put among the Lake Township tokens the humans kindly sent to me." His airless tone became arid. "Such is Lethroneth's sense of humor."

Lusis could scarcely believe this. "She found it _in the Mountain_?"

"She did."

She opened her hands and looked at his still form – so graceful, discarded on the bed, "And when I asked you what was in the mountain?"

His head rose slowly. His eyes were shut, as if he feared what he might see. "At that time, I was sure of only two things," he said, "Lethroneth, and riches. I sent a spy into the Mountain."

She was staggered by the incredible stakes here. "_Doom's Fires_, the risk of it." She felt cold.

"But we must risk. We must be aware of variables and, we must." He breathed.

She swept her hands up for balance, his words had so unsettled her. "Ewon told me you were cautious. I see you are. You calculate your odds. But they're _big_ risks. _Fires_, Thranduil, if you're caught at this, it would be _war_. Everyone knows the treaty of Erebor gives the gold to _men_ and _dwarves_. Dwarves who _hate you_. If they once _killed_ a High-King, do you think they would hesitate in doing you harm?" She clapped shaking hands to cover her eyes and pushed back her hair. "_Bright gods_, get that elf out of the Mountain. Let it all belong to _men_ and _dwarves_."

"My men." His body eased up, and his teeth flashed. "These men are _mine_. I have claimed this place." His narrowed eyes burned.

For a moment, all she could do was breathe and curse. "_Fires_." And then she began to unravel him. "Have you come all this way to get what you paid for? Is that why you claimed them? It's not about hardships in Lake Township. It's not about me. It's about your baubles."

His head turned, and his silver eyes found her. The Elfking's voice was soft, "Those things so long ago left my heart. It would take a catalog review to find the ledger in which they were marked down. They were _so long ago_ replaced."

Lusis froze. She… hadn't considered that. She hadn't thought he might be able to move on. It was stunning how dehumanizing that kind of thinking really was. She backed away a step. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

He glided closer, slowly, "I am _not_ some single chapter from books. _This_ paragraph. _This_ line. They can only be reread, rephrased, translated, but they can never truly be altered. _They_ cannot _change_, but if only for the sake of mercy, _do not_ mistake me for this effigy of Redd's." He leaned close to her now, and his fingers gracefully opened into the web of Mithril. "And this was _never_ mine. This was made for _my son_. I wanted it… to protect him."

And she believed him. She could feel the truth in him – in the light of him shining out of the throat of his shirt. "You _aren't_ here for the gold."

"I am not here for the spoils of that war." He closed his hand around the web. "It is done."

"Just tell me the truth." She dropped down beside the bed and looked up into his silver eyes. "What are you really doing here?"

"Many things," he sorted out the web in his fingers. "I am… teaching Kasia to be a ruler. I am training sections to come onto my new land without fear, even though it has humans all over it, and my Woodland elves are shy of mankind. I am… being useful to local businesses and interests that will, one does hope, help to advance the wellbeing of Lake Township citizenry. I am protecting the river, the forest, and now the lake. I fought one enemy to a standstill, and continue to teach others that we are not weak and will not tolerate raiding and piracy. I have insured the King's Share, that the income of tithing continues, and men can safely increase their traffic on the river. Also, yes, I am sending my spy into Erebor. I believe that there is something fell in that mountain – yet some darkness." He extended a hand, paused, and then touched the necklace on her neck. She could feel his fingertips moving. But then his long fingers glided weightlessly around her throat. His palm was warm. His hand slid upward, and for the first time in too long a while, she felt all the tightness go out of her shoulders. And she panted the fragrant air. "Something in that Mountain is involved in this affliction of yours. I know your eyes cannot see it. I see it day and night, this shadow of a noose." He took his hand away and the tightness fell back into place.

Now that it had been noticed, she sucked air trying to loosen a rope she hadn't realized was growing slowly tighter over time. She wheezed and fit her hand around the silver chain, fighting until she got her breathing under control again. Then she slumped by the bed and wiped her eyes in her sleeve.

"Poor creature," he stroked her hair so lightly it felt like a breeze.

Except she wasn't. Lusis knew she wasn't anyone. Left on a mountain, exposed to die in a part of the world that argued she might even be the blood of Angmar, she _knew_ she wasn't. She was only special in that she was special _to him_. Like Avonne was special to him, or like the bull elk, or the basket of flower garlands that had made him smile once. _She_ was just like everyone else.

"You are a man," her shoulders worked as she sucked enough air to finish, "who loves his pets."

The Elfking stiffened.

She got up and took her sword. Then she turned and bowed to him, shaking by this time.

She opened the door, left it so, pulled the bench across his doorway, and lay down on it with her back to him. She didn't hate the ways of elves. Rather, she thought she might love them. She didn't hate his own ways. Inside the room, she could hear the Elfking moving somewhat.

He sat up for a long time, and didn't go to bed.

She woke in the dark. The moon told her it was close to 3 in the morning.

The Elfking's angled ear was beside her. He curled against the door, eyes shut, but fully clothed.

As she stirred, his head turned a fraction, and his eyes opened, a very little.

The moon found and lit up the bottom of those silvery disks.

For a moment, she wondered what it was like to be an elf, and to have nature itself to comfort you, to fumble through the distance feeling for you. His eyelashes glinted.

He said to her, "You look at me from bottomless wells, Lusis. Inscrutable."

Translation from Elven? Her eyes were dark. She couldn't hide the smile, and rolled to sit up and stare away from him. At his close relative – or so she imagined – the moon. After a moment she said, "I hope you didn't spend all night on the floor, my Lord."

His silver eyes eased nearly shut, "I hope we are finished with arguing. It is _fatiguing_."

"Okay. Get up." She gently clapped her thighs a couple of times and then added a nervous, "I'll help you get out of those fancy royal garments. Heaven knows you couldn't get through the bedroom door in the morning without three layers on."

Off behind her, he said. "You will not. No. I don't believe that would be helpful to either of us."

Lusis continued to look at the moon. She thought of Nema. She thought that Nema had a point about men and that too many took that woman's opinions lightly. Here Lusis was, and it was late. She was tired of worrying about her troop, of fearing for the good of great elves, and sleeping on a bench outside the door of a man whose light held the fascination of the moon to her beating moth. He was off his footing, and, she believed, emotionally overloaded by humans – more and more humans – all the time, buzzing around him, touching him when they shouldn't, acting familiar with him, saying things they shouldn't, reading him not at all, throwing things at him, all unable to properly do honour by him, which was another fraction of his nobility, as relevant to him as his power to claim land, to slay dragons, and to command armies was. He was, in a literal sense, the nearest comfort she could take. Maybe he made concession that she was the same to him. She felt scorched by the thought.

Which was an honour. Her gaze darted up at the moon.

A small, high-pitched sound reached her ears. And was choked away to nothing in an instant. She got up and hurried to the windows, but, in truth, she wasn't sure she'd even heard it. Except he was very still in the room behind her.

"Lusis." No, he was now behind her in the hall.

She turned and rushed to the stair. "Stay here. I need to check the yard." She clapped her sword to Redd's closed door. It would be enough to wake him.

Amathon's open door was already filled with half-dressed elf in any case. "Who of us cried out?"

She ran down the stairs and found Avonne in the main hall there. She'd been asleep on the couch when last Lusis had seen her, and now she stood with one of Kasia's security men by the barred doors. "I need to get out!"

"Someone screamed," Avonne bounced in her flouncy cotton nightdress.

Lusis caught up the guard's discarded cloak and ran for the servant's exit. At least, the way it was now, nothing was getting in via the most obvious route. She charged out into the darkness and her speed alone would have caught a foe unawares. She'd twirled the cloak up around her and was running hard for the elf she saw laying on the cobbles. Woman elf. From the new section.

Who was harassed by a black shape that made it harder and harder for Lusis to breathe.

The dark-spot-men, she called them. When she saw them, spots danced in front of her eyes. Now that she was so close to the struggling, suffocating elf, and the shade above her, she could hardly see, Lusis was left with only one recourse – to tackle, which she wasn't even certain would work. But since the shade looked at her with the disconnected eyeballs of one of the barge-victims, she thought it might have some mass.

And it did. She struck it, and the necklace she wore, and the elf sword she carried, blazed with a sudden flare between. Its body got harder as she was on her way through it. Then it blasted into flying ash and shards, throwing her against the side of Kasia's main building so her bones rattled with impact.

The gasping elf clawed her way to her feet and made a high pitched howl – some word in elven.

The courtyard was suddenly flooded with elves. Close to sixty of them in under twenty seconds. Lusis hadn't even picked herself up off the ground. In fact, the injured elf stepped back and hooked a trembling hand under her elbow. Then helped Lusis to her feet.

Lusis leaned against her, arm over the elf-woman's shoulder, and both of them gasped.

The woman bared her bloody teeth. "Go in pairs, with care! Check the grounds! They are here!" She opened her opposite hand, and held the eyes.

Air. Lusis needed air.

She felt herself spinning. The Elfking pulled her erect with a fist in her shirt and a hand fitted around her neck. His voice was low and angry, "Will you come to my lands, my doors? Will you harm my peoples, and take what is mine?" His voice banged on the wood and stone enclosure of the courtyard like an explosion. She gasped. His eyes were burning halos of blue-silver and she was afraid of him. Though she tried to respond, his fingers began to emit the most intense light. It plucked her flesh with sparks that felt like acid.

The noose on her neck began to blaze. Lusis was in air in the storm of his power, more floating than suspended. More held down onto the earth by his hand than raised up from it. It was impossible to see. His skin had gone bluish where it should have been white, silver everywhere else. And his eyes burned so violently, they were like a pair of suns.

Through all of this – the terror and pain, a sudden blast of air expanded her chest and she felt her eyes shut. She could breathe again. Inside of her own body, factors hastily rearranged themselves in response to his flood of power. The blaze died away and she dropped to her hands and knees on the ground before him.

The King's body tipped left so that one hand could brace him on the wall, his hair floated down over him.

Somewhere above them, Nimpeth's bell-clear voice shouted, "Men from the brigand camps, incoming at twice our number! Sections, _defend the King_!"

She heard the ring of the Elfking's sword coming out.

Elves practically vaporized getting to positions along Kasia's properties to do battle. Lusis predicted it would be a short and violent engagement. And she should go see to it. But she couldn't quite get up. Everything moved slowly in fits and starts. Except for the Elfking who moved not at all.

Only the elf-woman she'd protected remained with them, and Kasia's house security. And Redd. In fact, Redd caught her up from the ground, or tried to. She pushed him off with a patient hand. "Go, Redd."

"I need to get you inside."

"You need to go to the line in that skirmish and cut those brigands to the ground." She explained to him. "I'm all right. Just dizzy."

"Then the King."

"_Redd_, there are humans here and they are his subjects, too. We can see to him." She reached up and popped the clasp that covered the head of the axe Redd wore and said, "Go. See to the enemy. Top priority." She would've if she could. "I'll come when I can."

"You rest," he said as he hurried to his feet and told Kasia. "Care for them. They are spent."

Actually, Lusis found that, with the help of the elf who still held the stolen eyes, she could now come to her feet on her own.

Kasia hurried to her side. "Lusis, why did the Elfking attack you?" He was baffled.

"That was a defense," said the elf-woman. "There is some fell enchantment on this Ranger." She glanced over Lusis, "Or there had been. If it is still there, I can no longer detect it." Her voice sounded strained, which was strange for an elf. But Lusis understood the discomfort of being throttled.

Lusis' head was clearing rapidly. She turned to the Elfking and, carefully, she put her hands on his shoulders. "My Lord?"

His eyes remained shut.

"My Lord, your work was good." She glanced across at Kasia. "He needs to be taken into the house, and, by the powers, Kasia, be aware that he is your _King_ as you do so. We protect him or die." She gestured at the woman-elf, and, looking at her, the whites of her long eyes were red with strangling, an unpleasant vision she'd seen in her own glass a lot lately. "Take this woman with you. She needs rest and care."

"I can fight."

"That will be handy if any come in here and make for the King," Lusis nodded.

The elf accepted this. Lusis made her way toward the roar of the skirmish beyond, and, as if she had read clockwork, she saw a thug come tearing around the corner of the main dockyard building and race toward the yard. She hopped to the wall and pushed off toward him. He had little time and too much momentum. His sword came up, but her knee knocked it aside. Her sword opened up his face and throat in one stroke, and he crumbled.

She stepped over him and kept walking. The next was in an equally great hurry, but an arrow felled him. She looked up to find Ewon had suspended himself between one wall and the other. He nocked another arrow and was ready.

His dark voice fell down to her, "Are you well enough, Lusis-sell?"

She shook blood off her sword. "I'm going to go plug a hole."

Some distance above, he chuckled.

The battle was like nothing she'd seen before. The elves were beautiful, as she remembered them always being superb, but their hatred of these men coming for their King burned a fatal cold. They were nearly soundless, which was in no way natural in battle, and, though outnumbered, they were terribly effective. She entered the struggle and found Redd swinging his axe. He halved a spear and took a man straight in the chest in one blow.

"Give me a boost?"

From long practice, he didn't question her. He just picked her up and tossed her weight up toward a placard. She caught the edge of it and swung out around a corner. Here the enemy was thicker. She impacted within a foot of Nimpeth's flying fighting knives, and sliced through someone's exposed forehead as she landed.

Stepping in, she found someone who actually knew the sword well, and parried his thrust at her face with a jarring blow. She was smaller with less reach than he had, but fast, flexible, and stronger in her core as well. She shot into a low arc and cut him along the thigh. Blood ran freely and as he clapped a startled hand over it, she brought her sword down on the back of his neck. Bigger problems.

"They're running!" Lusis shouted. She could see them peeling off and heading back the way they'd come. She gave chase and braked quickly to avoid the slice of arrows. If the men made it past the elves' final volley, they escaped with their lives. The rest lay either dead or injured on the crushed stone street.

Nimpeth bounced by her and up to an awning, and then a sill, and a rooftop. She raced to make sure they were retreating. Several elves followed in the dark, unwilling to destroy men who ran from them, and so, giving them more opportunity.

The rest hurried to picking up bodies and detaining prisoners. It was astonishing how fast they turned from dealing death and disarming men to binding injuries and detaining prisoners. The forces had been fighting near the edges of the group, and they assisted. For them, it was a pretty good showing considering none of them were dead. Lusis hurried across the yard. She hadn't felt like this – like herself – in months, and now, she spun her sword in air. Tossed it up, and caught it again. It felt freer than air. She could breathe.

The stars above her seemed to vibrate with light.

She washed off at the spigot and went inside only when she felt able to contain herself. It was probably bad form among elves, but was surely bad form among men, to emerge from a skirmish in such good and high spirits. But she had _air_.

Redd crouched down and scrutinized her a final time, then grinned. "That's a girl! You look almost normal now, instead of like you might walk on air any minute."

"Whatever it was, I think he burned it right off of me." She headed for the house through a yard packed with elves and forces. "Redd, this might be it for me! It might be over!"

He nodded at her, but with a small twinge of unhappiness.

"What is it?" she asked.

"You'll want to leave, and… you know, the _King_." Redd said softly, "And the elves, I suppose. I've sort of… grown attached to them, to being among them and learning about them first hand, instead of from books. You know? I've… I've listened to them talk, and I've taken down some of their stories about each other in a book of my own. Just random things. Things they've done. Battles they've won. Things here. Something I can put in the Hoard, but written by my own hand."

"They don't need _Rangers_ for a guard. They have _elves_." She told him.

"Still."

"But we won't have to leave them," she disagreed, and then frowned and touched her throat. Maybe not them. But… him. The thing that had brought her to the King's attention had been the noose, and her inability to talk about what had befallen her in the North. Her last duty to him would be to give him this intelligence, and then there would be no need for him to be near her again, or for him to speak to her, except in passing. She would, of course, fulfill her promise to Eithahawn and protect him… but…. She slowed on her way up the steps. It was like someone had reached up and unscrewed the sun from the firmament, like it was no more than a bright glass knob threaded in the sky. Something that could be removed and taken back Underhill upstream, forever away from her sight. The fiery downfall of knowing the Elfking was the glorious ride of getting to know him, of being around him and both his exasperating, and his beautiful complexities, without realizing you would soon lose the pleasure.

But it was all or nothing. Lusis quickly realized she would either decide to savor every moment of his strange company, or she would wallow sorrowfully because it would end. And she had never been much for self-pity.

She looked up at the open doors to Kasia's main hall.

The Elfking folded into a luxurious leather chair, his red velvet cloak around him, but he bent against the wing of it, worn and wearied, his sword and sheath standing beside him so that his long fingers could sit around the hilt and rest on the guard.

He turned his elegant head to listen to an update on the skirmish outside.

She saw him explain the situation to the anxious Council, who, unlike him, looked tense.

He shifted the weight of his attention to the Rangers as they entered, which was like dawn in the room, with his long hair rolling down his chest and catching the firelight. It was out free, and he pushed it back from his forehead with a long hand. He'd set his circlet over the guard of the sword where it hung and glinted a very telling illustration of the things that made him up – Kingship; war. "I have been waiting."

She remembered herself and bowed at once. She could see Redd do the same and then remain in the doorway.

The Elfking raised his chin a fraction. She drew toward him until his head sank again. That was her sign that she was close enough. He extended a white hand to her, and she wasn't sure what to do, so she brought up both her hands and sort of placed them underneath. He had long, tapered fingers. For a moment he remained there. Then he reached up and cupped her chin. He lifted her head and turned it a little.

"I… I thank you deeply, Elfking. You've freed me," she pointed at her throat when he released her, which was childish. But so was the swell of emotion tumbling around inside. She so hated being confined, and he'd cut her out of captivity. What had been a foggy reverie as she'd walked down from the Grey Mountains had become a reality by the work of his elven will. She set her hands over her cheeks, which felt like the sides of a full teacup, closed her eyes, ducked down and held in her emotions.

The King said nothing. He was giving her time.

She got herself in order quickly as a result. "I can tell you now, what happened to me."

"I doubt that," the Elfking sank back in his chair. "Though you can tell me _more_, I believe. The enemy still has dominion over you. There is only so much my temper can accomplish without my sword behind it."

Kasia, Cardoc, and young Farna, the trader, sat on a hide couch on the King's left. And now Kasia got to his feet and inclined himself before the King. "My Lord, what's happened to Lusis?"

"I am not sure yet." The Elfking's head tipped to gaze up into the moonlight streaming in. "Sit, Kasia. You weary me. Believe me when I say her problems are of a more serious nature than your own, and their outcome impacts us all."

Kasia sank back to the couch with his eyes on Lusis. "I guess it's not by chance that he came this way with you, Ranger."

"I guess not," she told him in return. "And I hope I'm not the cause of these troubles."

The Elfking made a huff of amusement. "The cause is the enemy. It is ever that way." His great eyes averted to the circlet. The fire cracked behind him. "A ring is but a ring, but for the hammer of the enemy. And all the calamity, the partings and separations, losses and cares, all saw the forge and furnace of the enemy, and continue even after death. You are children who do not understand." He looked up at the section heads striding into the hall. They stopped to bow and he said, "Merilin. Arasell. Tell."

"A raid by the criminal element we stirred up hereabouts." Merelin noted.

"Most of whom are being fitted for boxes now, my Lord," finished Arasell in her high, light voice. Her eyes darted to Lusis, and she inclined her head a fraction. It was one of her section Lusis had saved.

"Some of whom are in the custody of the forces, if you would like us to speak to them." The elf section head wheeled a knife around his hand so quickly that it was a blur.

"See to it." He dismissed them.

They turned in unison and left the hall. The sections, in lines from the steps to the yard, turned elf by elf, to follow their leaders. Inside, the humans watched in wonderment.

Lusis got to her feet and bowed to the King. "If you're done with me, my Lord, I'd like to check on the wellbeing of the silver tree now."

He seemed charmed by this. "Ewon, with her."

The Elite stepped out of shadows along the wall and waited for her to join him.

As Lusis reached the Elite, the elf-woman she had helped was brought unsteadily before the King. She hesitated to hear what the woman might have to say. Nimpeth and Amathon helped her through the humans gathered around the Elfking, and she sank down to the rug as she reached him.

She bubbled out a long stream of elven that the King listened to for only a moment before he shifted forward in his seat, reached out, and set his hand upon the crown of her bowed head. Lusis didn't understand was she said, but the King's unruffled voice was soothing, restful.

The young elf very suddenly fell silent. She continued to quake.

The rest of her report was quick and terse. She knew she couldn't trust her voice to hold for much longer. The Elfking stayed close to her. He glanced up at the sound of Lusis' name. Lusis nodded. Yes she'd done what she could to save the girl. When the elf finished her recounting, the King laid a hand against her cheek, his fingers extending across her ear.

She went still. He bent forward to her and whispered against her forehead, and the sound of the sibilance rushed through the hall like the muffled sound of wingbeats. Tension ran out of her body and she folded nearly onto his lap.

"She must stay here." The Elfking sank back in the seat. "She is young and… badly injured."

Nimpeth nodded and helped the elf away from the couches. She brought the girl upstairs to her own room. Another from her section walked behind them, there to care for, and heal, the injured girl.

"There's hardly a mark on her," Nema threw her dark curls and scoffed, bothered by the easy immediacy that the young elf had had to the King.

"The injuries to her person were mercifully slight," the Elfking rose to his feet in a fluid motion and left his circlet and sword behind. "But there is more to the heart of a warrior, to her wellbeing, than the haleness of her body." He looked up the stairs behind her and didn't turn. "Lusis. How did you defeat the shade? Tell me. Telfeth described it as hardly having any material to it, as being _smoke_. Until you struck it. Then it shattered into ash and coal." He pivoted his lengthy body her way, "and _eyes_."

"She had the eyes," Lusis told him. "She tore them out of its head as… its head became solid. I couldn't see much by then, but I couldn't miss that."

"Yes," he lifted the goblet beside his chair. "They're here if you would like to see them." He swirled them around in the steel cup.

Lusis suppressed a shudder that amused the warrior King.

His hands set down the cup, joined behind his back, and he stepped forward. When the moon lit him, his pale skin seemed to inhale its light. She'd seen him do the same in the sun and shook the thought of him staring up into the clear blue out of her head.

She told him, "I had problems breathing coming up to it. And the same concern. So I treated it like a group, like I needed to cover a lot of surface area, and so I leapt at it and hoped it had enough substance to be thrown aside." She hooked a finger around the doubled-up chain on her neck and pulled it out of her shirt. It glowed whitely on her clothes, "What I can't explain is why the chain and sword sparked together, and why that made it burst into ash." She tapped the hilt of the elven sword.

"The sword you hallowed, my Lord. And your chain." Ewon said at once.

Nema's face screwed up. She shot to her feet. "_His_ chain? You wear a chain of _his_?" She was outraged by this.

The look she received from the Elfking was very unfriendly. Nema fell silent at once; the King, for his part, managed not to unleash invective on her.

Then the Elfking inhaled the night air and went back to the sword as he spoke. "Lusis, do not be abroad long. I _must_ rest tonight. I find that difficult to do with the thought of you sprinting about jabbing your sword into the general environment." He snatched the serpent-tongue of sword smoothly and snapped the tip down and up again in a quick bounce. The circlet jumped in air and fell into his open opposite hand.

He moved up the stairs with a sigh, "Wine. And on pain of a lashing, silence."

Amathon bowed to him, "Yes, my Lord."

Kasia got to his feet to look up after the Elfking. There was a lot of maintenance involved with having one, he realized. A King. They were extremely powerful. They could be quite independent. But it would have been a lie to say they were self-supporting. He gestured at his staff. "Don't bother bringing him anything less than the best we have. He can tell the difference." The elf was uncanny.

Lusis felt for Kasia, she did, but he'd already gained so much from his association – this unprecedented alliance of his – with the proud Elfking. She turned and went to the door with Ewon, and kept her words low, "What did she say? The elf, Telfeth?"

"She feels she came too close to failing the King. It deeply troubles her. She was afraid for her life – I get the sense… that had not happened to her yet."

At that old, dusty memory, Lusis nodded understanding.

"But she is young. She is Arasell's youngest charge and widely held as gifted. It is said she can hear a caterpillar spinning. This is not an inattentive woman, which is how she came upon the shade. It was upon her before she could cry alarm, and began to reach down her throat with its insubstantial hands." Ewon shuddered in distaste. "Foul and vile. And you delivered her from certain death, she said." They came out the door together.

They checked the tree, which was in no distress. The guards from the forces there opened the gate for them and reported that Redd had left only about ten minutes before. He was to do a last circuit of the property and go inside to sleep.

"Sounds good to me," Lusis looked up at the tree. Even at night it blew slowly in the breeze and bees and birds fluttered around in its glimmering pollen. It was full of life. Massive. Full of time. She smiled at it, and then headed inside with Ewon.

She met Redd in the big hall, where the Council was discussing the attack, and fell to a hush as she passed them. She walked upstairs in Redd's wake. The bench at the end of the hall never looked so inviting.

The King was in his room, wrapped in volumes of silver silk robe and no matter what his intentions, from what she could make out, he was curled, all but unconscious, in the huge bed. "Lusis," he said quietly in the darkness of the four-posts and canopy.

She got up and staggered in to his call, hardly able to see him in the dark, but that he moved and the steady light inside of him, usually gold, now burned steady blue. It was worrisome. Had using the engine inside of him cost him too much? It had been painful, what he'd done. But she felt the pleasure of breathing had been worth the burst of pain in getting there. Now she sank down on the edge of his bed with her nerves buzzing. It was prohibited to touch the bed where he lay, that was one of the things the elves had told the upstairs maids. Lusis was too tired to care. If the Elfking found it untoward he would probably very much enjoy telling her so. And A Certain King should have let her sleep. She knew where his chest was, for sure. She looked at it and sighed, "Somehow it suits you, the blue flame."

The bed shifted. The flame rose. She could feel him in the dark, close to her, with his great silver eyes staring at her. All she could think was how terribly intimidating he would have been to Nema's young concubines. She felt pinned and he was just looking at her. "Explain?"

"The light," she told him and her eyes darted to him. She could see the suggestion of his vulpine features in the flame shining at the base of his throat. "Redd's books again, my Lord. Don't let it concern you."

His voice drew long with irritation. "Explain."

"One of his books, his childhood books, the ones in which you frightened him. It told that you had a furnace inside that burnt all. I can see the light of it – I venture all can see that. But changed. At rest, that tongue of flame is _gold_. Now it is blue."

The cold light turned his hair silver in the dark. He'd cocked his head just enough for the lengths to tumble down over the light of it.

She got to her feet and bowed, "You called my name, my Lord?" Her eyes fixed on the light.

His hand passed over the tongue of flame. His voice drew long with fatigue. "Stay inside these halls tonight, Lusis Buckmaster. There are nearly sixty elves outside, all of them trained for battle, the youngest of which I would venture is twelve times your age. Trust in them."

Lusis inclined her head and went back to the bench.

It would have been easier to trust to the elves if she didn't constantly _worry_ about them too. She knew she'd come to love them, and love was the asylum of agonizing concern. She lay on the unrelieved bench and tried to ignore it. In truth she was asleep so quickly she had no other thoughts of trust, no consciousness of the blue tongue of flame that came to stand over her in the door, and then cover her up in red velvet.

In the morning, his graceful body stood, fully dressed, chest roaring cracking fingers of daystar gold, and she realized she was in his way because she'd slept so long. Slept until daylight.

She rolled up to her feet and automatically pushed the bench out of the way to let him out. He already had Kasia in the upper hall waiting for his input.

She staggered into Nimpeth's room for a bath in which she fell asleep.

Much to her surprise, the gifts for the elves had not stopped after the skirmish.

She would have thought they'd be blamed for the entire affair.

Lusis could see them coming as she paced. The Council had called a meeting, and the Elfking had insisted on having it in the yard. As a result, anyone bringing anything, that morning, had an unforeseen treat. It was only then she realized that the vast majority of the people of Lake Township had yet to lay eyes on 'the White Elf'. Many of the people Lusis and Redd passed in the streets thought that he would look little different than a human and be very hard to tell from anyone else in town. They wondered, in passing conversation, how – if he were to address them – they might even realize it was him. Some hated, even despised the idea of a King. But none argued with the results.

A trio of people carried in the most beautifully hewn trunks. They were cut in white wood and decorated with carved trees. As they cleared the semi-circle gathering that had already formed, she could see some of them stop and gape at the tall king as he paced. And the yard, it had a lot of pacing room. Honestly, given the integration of open spaces into the living spaces of the elves, it had been a matter of time before this happened. It was gorgeous out, and he belonged under the sun. The wind was a mellow mix of warmth from the wooded breeze, and cool from Erebor. And he walked in and out of the shadow of the main building, where strawberry runners stretched across the pale blue cobbles in the yard, and the air drifted with hummingbirds set for the Blazing Stars and Foxglove that huddled against the walls around him. Everything was growing in earnest.

In the backdrop, the tall silver tree's limbs stroked the sky. Now and again it sent up a muddle of blue and yellow butterflies. They also tumbled around the golden rod growing along the dockyards.

The wind picked at strands of the Elfking's shining hair, but set them down to rights. Out under the sun, his eyes looked incredibly pale a blue. His pupils like watery vortices. No. He did _not_ look like just anyone.

"Disorganized," he told the Council. They had had chairs brought out for them, but the King wasn't much for sitting around. He drifted by them in a waft of forest green air and honey. He looked up at the sky for a moment and his eyes flashed silver in the sun. "Clearly there are two problems here. There are the thugs in the camps – a problem for the forces, ultimately. They will persist as long as there is gold in Thorin's mountain." He turned his head to look at the distant peak, which he could see from the sunny part of the yard.

Redd nudged Lusis and muttered excitedly, "He _knew_ the great dwarf Oakenshield."

"Stop it and pay attention," Lusis elbowed him, but, in actuality she was grinning and jubilant for her friend. He was so excited. To the Elfking, the mountain had last belonged to Thorin Oakenshield, and so it was, in his elf-thoughts, unclaimed and still Thorin's mountain. She suspected it would be that way to Redd for the rest of his days too: Thranduil's Halls. Whether he was in them or not.

The Elfking tipped his head to one side and exhaled. A bee shot around his long hair and out to the garden over the western wall.

"What are you thinking?" Kasia stopped looking at the King over his knitted fingers and got to his feet. It was a bad sign that he forgot to use an honorific now – his patience seemed strained. Or maybe it was the gathering of townspeople that kept him from politesse. He went to the table that had been set to one side. On it there was a crystal bowl full of ice water. He poured himself a goblet of it. It wasn't cheap to bring ice down from the mountain in the spring, to be sure.

"I'm wondering how much of this is my problem." the Elfking did something with which she was unfamiliar. He nipped his bottom lip and let it roll out of his white teeth. Very uncharacteristic of him. His face was usually very inexpressive. But something had him living very deep in his head today. Earlier, a little before dawn, he'd paced the blue stones like the Council didn't exist. It had put much of the Council into a terrible mood. Now that he turned to face the humans there, their reactions were a mixed lot. Some looked put out with him still, and others had already forgotten. "What is preventing your forces from facing down the criminals hereabouts?"

"Money," said Killian Wye. He made and imported fabrics. As a result, he could hardly keep his eyes off the elves' excellently made clothes. The Elfking's wardrobe nearly had him catching his breath in a brown bag. The blue-silver outfit the King wore today had left him agog. "There's a problem with funding not just the forces, but with funding the training, even drawing up the criterion for the forces."

Cardoc shook his head, "I'd say the lack of training is worse! Look at good Lusis and Redd there. They haven't two coppers to rub together, and they could cut a fly's hair in half with a blade."

The air got loud. Her pulse hammered a red beat in her face. Lusis was ready to slip into the earth and vanish.

"No offence to you, dear," Nema giggled at her. "It's ever that way with Rangers. A poor, filthy, brave lot. Not pennies enough for fresh bread, but you could be sure of a fine blade to cut it with if they had."

Lusis turned to Redd, her voice low. "Is it illegal to kill people on the Council?"

"Did you miss that meeting?" The huge man bubbled with amusement.

The Elfking's cool eyes pinned them. "Kasia… the forces lack discipline and training. If you could secure the proper resources to train and select your own men, your problems protecting this place against raids would begin to disappear. I believe the local Ranger troop, represented here, has already thought of this." He glanced at Cardoc. "Perhaps you can see fit to show future Rangers proper gratitude if they arrive, Cardoc Wence, for without them the Greenwood itself would have been overrun, we'd be rather short a King to our North West, and the quest to vanquish the Great Darkness in the land would have failed." Steam fairly rolled off the chill in his words.

Lusis and Redd remained motionless at the mention of this. Neither of them had known Strider, or ever met him, but the man was a _legend_. Young people still flocked to the North to walk the routes and riverbeds he'd taken. Lusis had. Aric and Icar too. The Council considered them, and Lusis swore if Redd up and waved at them, she'd throw him on the ground and stand on him. But neither of them moved. The focus shifted back to the Elfking.

The King resumed long-legged pacing. "The problem of your lawless neighbours is one you should be able to control, Kasia. If you had added an individual to the Council whose sole purpose was maintaining order through force of arms, and application of law, then this issue might not have arisen. Also, your late Master might yet be breathing. If you know none such, I would encourage you to begin searching. This is not a matter for elves. Applying our laws here will not work for your people except in the most fundamental sense."

Nema's brows drew up, "Such as?"

His hair tumbled over his shoulder as he turned, "Decrees that address the most basic ethics of the people," he said to her, "fortitude, serenity, restraint, nonexistence of interpersonal violence, and the habit of peace." He inclined his head a fraction. His eyes looked beautiful saying it, and his chest sputtered from a yellow tongue of candle to a sudden roaring flame.

Maybe Nema sensed it in him – either immodesty, or ferocity, or rage. But she sensed a hint of something inside the King that she thought she knew from powerful men and her smile was stony, "And you consider yourself a habitually peaceful man?"

So the bloodbath hadn't gone unnoticed. It had been _too close_ to home. The Rangers had seen this reaction before among powerful people with clean hands. Though they did not dare openly condemn the King for it, their own lives had been on the line, there were still unintended consequences. Dead men were a net loss of business for Nema, and the sheer number of bodies and parts of bodies, overseeing the men put to work washing blood and human offal from the walls and out of the stones of streets, it was something the other Councilmen – all of them businessmen – seemed to find _bestial_ and _atrocious_. All at the King's command.

But the King's unblinking and crystalline eyes drilled into the Madam, and Nema did not heed it. He told her in low sharpness, "I am a _King_." Then he contained himself again. He returned to thinking and quiet pacing. His voice was soft. "Lusis Buckmaster. Redd Ayesir. Would you kindly see to it that any Rangers of the North who accept an offer begin to bring the local forces to par as… sections? One does not know the terms into which humans divide their numbers of warriors." His hand began a soft gesture he muted to nothing.

Something really had him preoccupied.

"A section of elves would be a platoon of men, just as a patrol would be a squad." Redd said easily. Too many books, that man.

The King stopped his endless pacing and his silvery eyes looked at Redd, as he usually did: Like he was entertained. Then the King turned to Kasia. "Is it clear what will be done?"

The human crowd around them had doubled. It seemed to be growing as word surged through the town that the Elfking was out of doors.

"Crystal, _Elflord_."

The King froze with his tremendous eyes on Kasia. He was no _lord_ to this man.

Kasia threw up his hands, "Apparently, we'll pay a number of Northern Rangers to make our forces more violent and unmanageable than the criminals living in the weeds around Long Lake."

_Okay. Enough of this_. Lusis made a step for him, but was immediately detained by Redd. "No, lass. We do not battle to _his_ drumbeat."

That was… wise. It was true. She settled back and stared at the man instead. But the look she gave him left no question of how very pointless and inconsequential she found his opinions about Rangering. She wasn't the worst nor wisest of creations, but she would not be used and abused again.

The Elfking bent so close that the light from his pearly skin cast a halo onto Kasia. "If you are not mindful… I will be displeased." His lips made a soft snarl that was beautiful on that final word. His white teeth bared a moment before he moved away into the most sunny and hospitable of expressions.

The Rangers looked at one another, Lusis puffed her cheeks out a little. That face, that beautiful face of a doll. That's what you got when you impressed _serenity_ and a _habit of peace_ onto the face of a firestorm. He wasn't like other elves. For being so very domesticated, he was many times more feral.

But the sudden shift from a hoarfrost of menace, to warmth and conviviality jogged something in Kasia. He looked at the King differently. Carefully. As if the creature before him were set on the edge of a precipice and might fly at him, or fly the place. As if the affable and forbearing King he'd come to expect could be peeled away like a blanket, to reveal a beast underneath.

It was Cardoc who stood. "Elfking, we will _find_ a leader to join the Council who can wisely wield the forces. We have heard you and I promise you this will be done, and you will have my own reporting upon the effort, you have my word. But please… what are these shades? How can we stop them?"

"Shadows," his chest seemed hollow for the word. "They are the real problem here. The real foe of men. But neophyte – a fire so new we might extinguish it with greater fire still. They are almost assuredly the souls of men. They are called from the grave and yoked to service as spies."

"That's why they need the eyes," Lusis muttered and looked up at Redd. "Anything in your books that can do something like this?"

He nodded at her. "Few things raise the dead, or create some mockery of the living as I've read about. Some witches. Necromancers. And Maiar."

There was that word again. And again, as Lusis stared across at the Elfking, she didn't like any of those answers very much. She watched him. He seemed delicate with his long silver hair in the wind, when she thought about vast evils like Necromancers. How strong was he, really?

His silvery eyes found her looking at him. She was no King of Gondor in secret. So as his head tilted to one side, as she saw him against the backdrop of humans, who had now tripled their number, he might have been asking the same of her.

By the time the sun was declining in the sky and the shadows were long, the yard was so packed with people from Lake Township that the King looked up and around him at one point, and went silent mid-ruling. The men in charge of moving the earth embankments at flood stage were arguing about where the soil would do the most good – should half be used to build an embankment against the closest of the brigand camps? Watch towers could be set on top of it, they argued.

But the Elfking did a slow pivot. There were so. Many. Humans. And so _very_ many children.

He stepped back from a small, teetering one who jogged out and nearly across his boots.

His head tipped. A small child. Perhaps a boy. The boy smiled up at the King. He clapped his hands.

The King started in elven but quickly translated. "_A henig_ – hello child, did someone lose you?"

The child liked the sound of the White Elf's voice and was thrilled. He pointed at either the King's hair or his pointed ear, it was hard to say. In any case, the Elfking stooped to pick up the child. His eyes combed the crowd for the most panicked-looking parent. He picked them out quickly, since the father appeared to be hyperventilating, and carried their little boy over to them.

"So sorry, my Lord," the man said of his son. "He's just… a playful little thing."

The child was patting the King's crystal bright mane of hair.

"Yes, that I can see," he wore that most standard expression of elves. Flat and slightly curious. He gave the boy over with an expert hand. His eyes scanned the crowd. "All from Lake Township? And so many?"

"Oh, many more than this," the woman said, and then, when his eyes darted to her, hastily added, "my Lord."

The King lifted his head and turned slowly to the argument behind him. His eyes narrowed, and he turned away from them, sighing. "And why have you come here?" He wouldn't have been there if he'd had any choice in the matter at all.

"I never seen… an elf before," said a boy somewhere in his indeterminate adolescence. He crushed and twisted the wool hat in his hands and stared at the King's blowing hair.

The Elfking's brows went up. "Ah… I see."

"King of Mirkwood," another woman pushed through the thronging crowd. "May I… may we… Great Elf? This overgrowth in the city. It's… the fish and the lambs – there are a lot of lambs this spring, an amazing bounty of lambs, Forest King. Hives are dripping honey in puddles. The flowers are springing up right through the… the floorboards of my home. And… many of us are wondering if," she swallowed hard and took a frantic breath, because she was increasingly afraid. She didn't know how to go on.

The Elfking leaned over her a fraction, his head cocked with such slowness it was unsettling, when, in fact, he'd seen that she looked distressed and was trying to sort out what the matter might be.

"Do you think he means you harm?" The new voice was soothing. "Do not be afraid." Eithahawn came to a stop in the enclosure behind the Elfking.

"Eithahawn," the Elvenking turned just enough to see his cherry red-clad seneschal. His eyes widened a little, for though he'd sent for the seneschal to come take stock of the books in this new reach of their land, Eithahawn had arrived quickly. "Are you well?"

The elf bowed, "My King, my one hope is that _you_ are." Which meant both _yes_, and _thank you_. He straightened and looked at the vast number of humans. More than even he – who managed the queue – had seen in close proximity in a very long time.

But administering meant the golden-haired elf was also more accustomed human thinking than his King would likely ever be. He guessed, "Are you afraid of the growth in the land?"

The woman nodded at him, "Some of the talk is that this is a sign of _sickness_ in the soil and water… and that there is danger in it. It will be followed by a sultry summer and… _plagues_, they say."

"Ah, _they_," the Elfking glanced away and actually huffed amusedly. He quickly controlled himself and returned his most mild face to the crowd.

He looked aside to Eithahawn, who could not miss his King's clear delight. He suggested an alternate premise – the one elves knew to be true across the Ages. "It is a natural process in the land you are observing. It will settle over time, but, yes, this place shall not be the same. It is work, you will find, to have a King in the land. You must endure it, this… bounty." He glanced through the air, the wind making buckling tendrils of golden hair move in slow waves.

"It's a natural process in elf-lands, I'm sure, sir," a man spoke with great earnestness, "but we're not elves, sir."

Eithahawn corrected this thinking with logic. "I do not think it cares what kind of subject and what kind of King, the land. The White Tree of Gondor did not bloom until the return of the King. You must know this. The tale was sent far and wide – the King's Writers saw to this." He reached out a hand to stroke the petals of a flower a young girl offered to him, and then took it, and tucked it into her hair. "There is great promise here. Do not waste it on unfounded fears."

This seemed to mollify the humans who stood staring between them as they turned to the summons of Kasia and his Councilmen. The King turned and sun glinted on the Mithril circlet. Its pale gem threw sparks of light across his silver skin and great shiny eyes, and painted his white blond hair when it poured around him in the breeze. Beside him, Eithahawn, whom only very few of them had ever seen, was a warm figure, with eyes of sunny blue and orange-gold hair that tried to free itself from both its braid, and the silver wire cluster of leaves that marked his station. The arrival of the new elf cast the far harsher light of the King in a more welcoming manner.

"It seems I have a job for you that you won't soon forgive me for, Eithahawn." The King led him away from the humans pressing in on one side and brought him to the other – which was no less crowded by now. When he saw them all there, the Kingdom's seneschal smiled in the placid way of elves. The humans watched their every move.

"Have you not even introduced yourself to your new peoples?" he pulled an uneven breath and added, "Such as they are." And they were all very outlandish to his eyes.

"What good is that?" asked the Elfking, this time in elven. "We shall not linger. The Halls are our home. There is simply something here that I need to do."

"That does not mean they do not want to meet you." Eithahawn said lightly. "This is not a nursery, my King, and these people deserve to hear your voice – know your face."

Someone reached from the crowd to touch the edge of the seneschal's red velvet robe and he got the very distinct sense these people had no idea of the King's intention. Eithahawn was more aware of their time. The King could not go away under-hill for tens of years and expect these people to remember his power. He had, by then, seen the first of the Silver Trees that claimed this place, but the humans came and went like rain, and there would not be one alive who remembered he'd planted its seed here, if he didn't attend to the humans who had become his subjects. Which – and Eithahawn looked aside at his King – he meant to do, did he not? Surely? He'd been devoted and also advantageous to the Silvan.

The Council stood and stared. Kasia nodded softly at the approach of this new elf. "I know you." He said and inclined his head to Eithahawn.

"And I you," said Eithahawn in proper reflection of human pattern, "Master of Boats."

"King's seneschal, Eithahawn." Kasia nodded in the direction of the tall elf. "I suppose I could call you Master of Kingdoms."

"I am my King's servant," Eithahawn said genially and his hair spilled around him like a sunlit corona when he looked aside at his King.

The King's fingers curled against the elf beside him, nearly touching his chest, as if he meant to tap there above Eithahawn's heart. "I give to you another member of Council, this time, from the side of the Halls. And he shall represent my will while I am at other matters."

The men arguing about embankments looked the slender elf up and down and scowled. They hadn't tasted, yet, the elf's steely resolve, or felt the ceaseless power of his reason in negotiation. The entire Council, however, fell quiet when the elf closed his blue poppy eyes and inclined his head to them. "It is good to meet you. Please let me facilitate agreement."

The yard had become such a jumble of men, it was at that point that Dorondir, who had travelled all this way with Eithahawn, stepped up to Lusis and Redd in greeting. "We have to get them away from this press of people. It is not safe for either party, particularly with the King here. Where is best, Rangers?"

She smiled up at him. "No issue there. We'll take them into the upstairs of the main building, the building closest to them, and guard the doors to the back room. When the citizens clear out, we'll find Eithahawn a room." Her sheath rang out as she yanked out her sword and held it in air. She shouted to the crowd. "Make way for the King!"

The King's head did that quarter tip of utter confusion, the little tip where he wouldn't allow it to go any further, though she guessed he was itching to.

"You heard the lady," Redd barked over the dull roar of so many people in quiet conversation.

People fell back from Lusis and the distinguished elves she walked to join. "My King, myself, Redd, and Dorondir would like to see you inside." Now she did that thing she'd seen elves do before, where they tilted their head, just a fraction, in the direction of action – toward the main building.

The King pivoted at once, and glanced at Eithahawn. "Come. I warn you, most of the halls are tight and most stairs and ceilings low. It is _very_ closed off from the elements."

Redd went first.

Dorondir being chiefly an elf of the woodlands and of patrol, and _never_ having been so close to so many humans, particularly not while protecting the hot-house flower seneschal, let alone in the gilded presence of the King, was naturally restless. He turned into the back hall, pressed his hands to the narrow walls and then pushed, muscles bunching in his broad chest, back, and long arms.

The King paused, one hand on Eithahawn's shoulder, and the other on a knife hilt, on alert.

"It's normal. They're not closing in. You'll be all right, lad," Redd told the dark-haired elf. This made Lusis, who was walking in front of the King and Eithahawn, grin out of sight of the elves. But she also felt for the elf. She didn't like tight places much either. Or dirt. Or disorder.

But then Dorondir was probably _far_ older than Redd could even figure. Not a _lad_.

Still, it took a moment for them to collect Dorondir.

A few elvish words from the Kingdom's-seneschal soothed him, and they could move on.

Eithahawn was to be briefed on the members of the Council, while pacing in the upper hall.

That was the thing about elves. They didn't sit when they could stand. They didn't stand when they could move. They were seemingly immune to the elements, and utterly tireless.

Nimpeth's room beside the King's had now been emptied and prepared for the Kingdom's-seneschal. In point of fact, the only person without a proper place to sleep and bathe was Lusis. However, though it wasn't discussed, Nimpeth spent all of her personal time either reading in her father's rooms, or settled for the night in her husband's, so, with that extra place, there was no friction.

It was shortly after dark when the Rangers brought him to Kasia's guest rooms.

The seneschal inspected the human space they brought him into, with uncertainty.

Eithahawn was definitely not the diamond rampart that was the King, though the younger elf had certainly not been shorted when it came to his portion of the golden ratio. But when _the Elfking_ had entered his rooms, he had done the slow pivot of the sort of which only elves seemed capable, and, ice-cold in demeanor, he'd simply started using up all the space. He treated it little differently than as if the King had stridden into a bivouac on campaign. In that sense, he wasn't very particular at all, and one place was as good as another if it was spotless, secure, and served his purposes. The seneschal walked in and looked at the ceiling, common of elves. He glanced over the walls and bedding, and the claw foot tub, and then glanced at the exit as Redd blocked off all the light into the room. "It's very blue in here…. It's like visiting someone's storage. In Lothlorien." He tossed his pack onto the bed and watched it bounce with alarm. He crept over, pressed a hand into the mattress, and pushed down. When he eased back, the mattress sprang up under his hand. "Spongey." He did it again.

Yes, the Elfking might have raised him, but he was very much his own elf, Eithahawn.

"You'll be comfortable," Lusis smiled at him. He was a day-brightener, even at night. Elves passed in the hall outside, their nearly silent footsteps drawing Redd into the hallway.

Eithahawn realized they were alone, and summoned her closer to him at once. He bent over her, "Please forgive me, Lusis, for I know you to be an honorable friend, though not a Sinda or Silvan. But there are _so many_ humans, _so_ close. Is he safe?"

"He's very safe," she told the elf, "and you might have _told_ me that he had the strength of an Eagle, Eithahawn, and ice-water in his veins in battle."

"So you've been with him?"

She shook the sound of that out of her head, and replied, "As much as possible." She reassured the elf, took a few steps to the right, and touched the white bow he'd set against a post of the bed. "You know how to use this?"

"Since a child. I'm part Silvan, after all." He waved it away, "Has he seen anyone here? Have they been respectful?"

"Seen?" she didn't know what that meant and then she nodded and lowered her voice. "Do you know an elf called Lethroneth?"

His lips parted, and then shut for a moment of thought. "I do. Are… are they in some way engaging with one another, again?"

"I'd say. She brought him something from Erebor." Lusis left out the part where she'd blown her top at an Elfking so far her elder that the accurate math would take an hour to figure, a direct superior, and, bizarrely, he'd forgiven her audacity. She was still puzzling that one out.

Then she thought about it no more, because Eithahawn's smooth elven face – like all elven faces, very subdued in emotion – suddenly transformed into one of deep worry: his forehead wrinkled between his brows, and his lips frowned delicately. "If Lethroneth is here the matter is serious."

"She's that big a deal?"

"She is a Sinda _infiltrator_ who served Late King Oropher. Her skills are so great that Lorien requested her presence rather than have her sneaking in and out of their lands undetected as she had been doing. And has been. That is where she is supposed to reside. She is a very accomplished warrior, and shrewd after the way of the Elfking – they get along."

"Get along," Lusis' gaze bounced to the floor and she nodded over her crossed arms. "Right. _Get along_. Of course."

Eithahawn exhaled slowly, "And now he's had Lethroneth steal into the mountain." The elf shook his golden blond head. "You must not let him in there alone. Understand that our lands are exposed like those of our good kin of Lorien, but unlike them, we are without a Ring of Power to protect us. We have been _two Ages_ under attack on multiple fronts, Lusis. And he is _very_ sharp. So he devised a way to protect the land with stores of jewels. He has risked much to obtain them before, and by that means developed a desire for the power and security they confer upon us. And now… now the mountain is full of dragon-sickness." Eithahawn's head bowed so that his thick golden braid bundled on his shoulder like a comforting cat.

Dragon-sickness was a term she'd heard of only a few times in the North. "What is it?"

"Dragons are full of malice, Lusis. But their great eyes are full of beguilement. They are born to confuse. Born to delude. They love gold and riches, and their great lust for wealth can pass to the ore and stone around them. _That_ is dragon-sickness. Some races are too short-lived to suffer it and die of sorrow and longing. And some," he looked up at her, "_are not_."

"I told you," she glanced at the door and her voice lowered to a whisper. "I'll safeguard him."

He pressed his chest, above his heart, reached out a pale hand and actually touched her, lightly, on the upper arm. "My thanks." His low-lidded eyes looked very soft.

"It's – you don't have to thank me. I'm honoured. " She inclined her head to him.

Eithahawn turned to look at the room and his broad shoulders rose and fell, once, under the shiny cherry material he wore. "Yes. This will do."

She backed toward the door. "Settle in. Rest, Eithahawn. There's a lot of work here."

"Yes, friend-Lusis."

She paused at the door to what was now Eithahawn's room.

Ewon swept by without looking in her direction, which was a clear notice.

The Elite stopped to stand outside the Elfking's door, and, she swore… simply looked at the bright King. In his room he was surrounded by elves, some of whom stood along the walls, and some who stood beside the King himself in companionable silence. He was dressed in new clothes that they had brought to him. The clothes were deep gleaming blue, so dark that it looked like the sky before sunrise and with threads that glinted like stars. Now he looked pale as bone. There were more packages on the bed and she could imagine the fineries inside were exquisite. The living crown sat upon one silk case, its foliage alive, and small, pale flowers closing to blooms for the evening.

The silence was perfect, such that she could hear the faint sizzling snap of power as these new elves handed over their swords for the might of his King-Light. Because there seemed to be yet another section present, which raised the local population of warriors to _ninety_ elves. Enough to turn an army. The King's keen head rose to take in Ewon. He just seemed to look at the Elite with an expression both agreeable and impassive. Then his gaze deflected toward the fighting-knives he held. A white light raced across blade and blood groove.

No one seemed to speak. She had no idea what was taking place and backed up until she could whisper to Redd beside the rows of windows.

"What's happening?"

"One of the books say that the true name for the Eldar – the elves – is the Quendi. It took a while for me to learn it means _The Speakers_, and not just because language is important to them, but because in numbers they talk up here." He tapped his forehead. "I imagine it's more efficient when there's a lot of catching up to do."

Her eyes widened. They must have been _huge_. This was _well_ beyond body language. How many conversations had she missed out on? How frustrating was it to an elf accustomed to elves, to look at a human Ranger and not have her _hear_ him? How _irritating_.

Redd glanced down at her. "There are many things you don't know about them, and that I," he looked up and swallowed hard, his hands tightening on one another in the hall, "didn't know were true." There was a long pause and then a hoarse whisper. "But how fortunate are we to be here? How very few have ever seen the elves like this?" He was almost teary-eyed with excitement.

Strong emotion attracted the attention of elves the way blood in water did eels. The Elfking's head turned, his chin rose. He was charmed by Redd and his hunger for knowledge of the Fair Folk. Now he waited, but Redd smoothed himself and inclined his head. The Elfking turned away again.

Beside the huge Ranger, Lusis' eyes narrowed. "Redd. They're dressing him for battle." She glanced at the coming of true darkness outside. "We're going out."

This new breastplate was a dark luscious metal graven with the head of a dragon down the front. The glow of his skin reflected in its luster. When they finished, which they did in a remarkably short amount of time, they handed over his sword in a dark steel sheath.

Since Nimpeth had pulled the long forelocks of the King's hair, which usually fell before his ears, and pinned them behind his head, he looked sleek and feral as he crossed to the doorway. Elves fell away before him, until Ewon, who dropped to a knee.

He stopped and said to the Elite, "No. You will not."

It was the end of a conversation.

"Yes, my King." The elf rose and moved to stand with Nimpeth and Amathon. It was impossible to read his expression, but that he keenly watched the King.

And the Elfking's chin rose slightly. "It will be the Rangers. It is a gift of man, the power to forget." He turned in Lusis' and Redd's direction and said. "Will you ride out with me?"

Ewon's head bowed of a sudden, as if he couldn't face the moment and the King watched her closely. Very minutely.

Lusis saw this and steadied herself. She considered the honor of her elven comrades and immediately told him. "Without question." She had a bad feeling she already knew their destination.

Beside her, Redd added, "Even into fire, Elvenking."

Not the reception he'd expected.

From his doorway, Eithahawn looked on with hope.

A black cloak of light fine material dropped around her shoulder – this was Nimpeth's, and it was Amathon who took his cloak and gave it to Redd since he was the only elf nearly large enough. Unless they wanted to drape him in what the elk wore. Ewon went to his room and came back with his longbow and quiver and gave them to Lusis. An elf gave Redd a belt of small axes, perfectly balanced for throwing.

They didn't go through the front room, but out through the back hall to the maze of streets at the end of the yard. In the dark, the elves put them onto horses, and the King's bull elk waited. They went right, to the river, and started toward the Halls.

Merilin's elves met them, and, with a white ship that was clearly of elven make, his elves ferried them across the river. From there, they were out of sight of Lake Township. And they headed up through the forest toward Erebor. For that place reared out of the land before them, its heights glowing with cold fire under the moon.

She rode up and held the King's gaze a moment. "I think I told you…."

He reined the elk closer to her and breathed the words. "Patience, Lusis Buckmaster. I swear to you, we are almost done with this accursed place. But there is something in there I must see. Something Lethroneth could not remove, and I should not touch. Will you stay with me?"

Of course she would. He _knew_ she would.

The way got colder. They were on a steady incline coming to the mountain. And then the King spoke from deep inside his hood. "We have reached the Desolation. The ruined city of Hale."

"But I heard it had been rebuilt?"

"Not here." Said the Elfking. "It is too close to the very source of its own devastation. Too close to squabbles over gold and jewels. And directly in the path of the sickness in the mountain."

Redd told him, "I heard it cost half the gold to make it over again."

At that, the Elfking only smiled.

Rumours that all that gold was gone – out in the world – in exchange for a town, Lusis gathered, would've been helpful enough to commit to paper.

They rode through its cold outer reaches. Further in, fires could be seen from humans squatting in the wreckage of this once proud place. The building materials were all stone and the architecture from a bygone Age. Lusis' skin crawled, coming through this old and forgotten place. But then, she had been abandoned in old and forgotten places herself – an enclosure of stones so weathered they had passed from all meaning. And recently, she had been attacked near them. She had no reason to love ruins.

Their animals jogged and then walked toward the gates of the mountain. When they could see the tremendous front gates that had been built by the dwarves of the Iron Hills, and the dwarf sentries there, they dismounted into trees.

"There are other ways in," the King said.

A silvery voice breathed into the darkness, "I know them, my King."

Lethroneth was slender, slight, and pale. When she took down her hood, she was so fair and smooth, and her eyes so grey, she didn't resemble a thing of the earth under the moon. Her hair was a thick blonde tidal pool of ripples she clipped at the back of her head. Lusis would have said she was twenty one and no older. "Mind him, Lethroneth." He said of the elk. "That mountain is no place for him, or these horses."

"Of course," she barely spoke above a whisper and her eyes, which were identical to the mist around her, fixed on Redd and then locked onto Lusis. "Do you swear to protect him?"

"I have many times," Lusis reassured her while she dismounted. "I will."

Redd was already on the ground. "We will."

Lethroneth stepped up into the stirrup of Redd's massive horse and put a hand onto his mane. She whispered a few words in Elvish at the white-faced horse's ear and it turned with her still dangling there. She motioned at Lusis' horse and the bull elk and they turned to follow her into the thick mist of woods. "My Greatest King," her grey voice breathed down the slope and eddied around them, "I have marked it. You will not lose your way. Return to us, safe."

There had to be a mile of distance between them, but that shivery voice came down like a breath, and curled them up, Westron, yes, also somehow Elvish underneath.

"She's beautiful," Redd said quietly.

The King paused, looked back at him, and held his peace.

Lusis tried not to mind it. Lethroneth was a Sinda, like her Greatest King. Notably, she also didn't braid her hair, and that made Lusis wonder if it was a Silvan practice. Either way, his spy was a good match for the King. She could easily see them together. And she tried to be at peace with that.

They went further and further up the slopes following a trail of signs that Lusis couldn't see, until, finally, the King seemed to vanish into the shadow of a stone. Lusis felt along the granite with her teeth bared. Close spaces didn't rank high among the things she abided well. Her booted foot slid downward, and that was where they went for the next hour. In. Down. And the air became ice cold.

Until, finally, the gas lights that burned, eternally, in this place, began to glimmer ahead, and the solid darkness that was the Elfking stopped before her. He turned in the dimness and pulled his hood back. The distant firelight outlined his proud features and the slide of his jewel-bright hair, and he exhaled vapour into the cold. "You must prepare yourself for what you are about to see."

"What does that mean?" Redd whispered.

Lusis remembered that they'd been walking the stone business district at night, very much on their own, when he'd told her about what was in this mountain. Now she laid a hand on him. "There are riches in here, Redd. And beauty. We shouldn't take a coin of them, or move out of one another's sight."

The King pulled his hood up around his white golden face again, and then he stepped forward and eased out of what looked to be a solid wall. The ledge onto which he stepped was dim and very narrow. It overlooked a great drop of indeterminate distance. Taller than the silver tree, at least. Lusis flattened to the tunnel walls. "Redd it's a big drop and a ledge only two feet wide. Be careful."

They flattened to the wall outside and began to mince along it. The Elfking went along it easily, and with no discomfort. At the end, there was a corner with a thick cornice and the turn there was a three foot negotiation over a drop that was now twice the height. The ledge narrowed to a hand's span on this side, but it didn't matter. They could leap across to a landing.

They were in a large blue-stone staircase. And, when they turned the corner, they went onto a long promenade with a grand railing that showed off the incredible stonework of the dwarves of Erebor. Lusis stood, agape. The far wall of the mountain was lit by glassed-in gaslights in the shape of massive arrowheads, and the entire inner surface she faced was cut into halls, rooms, walkways, and huge balconies that glittered with uncut gemstones. Each span of the mountain wall was carefully hammered and polished to a glistening sheen so that the light made it seem to move. Like an ocean. An ocean of stone. It was _a Kingdom_.

"As I told you." The Elfking said.

The King brought them to the rails and stood, staring fondly at the far wall of this cavernous place a long moment, before he sobered and looked down.

They all looked down.

Into a massive inland sea… of gold.

Lusis caught hold of Redd. He leaned heavily on the rails. "Did your books say anything about this, Redd?" Her words were gasps.

For a long moment, Redd only stared and breathed, unable to speak. Then he sputtered. "_The… the dwarves pressed coins in the mountain. More coins than could be counted. Good dwarves pressed coins in the mountain. More coins than any need. And more still. And it fell – a casualty of greed_." He breathed, "It's a song. Poor creatures."

The Elfking's hooded head turned in their direction. "I warned them. It is nearly impossible to hear the truth over the rush of blood through the ears, seeing this great, vast…" his voice petered away and Lusis reached out her hand and curled her fingers around the arrow design on his dark steel vambrace.

The Elfking stirred. He turned his head enough that Lusis could see the heavy lids of his eyes. "Come with me."

They did. The staircase led down into what once might have been a counting room, and the case had no bottom, it just vanished into gold. They walked along it as carefully as they could, and the Elfking seemed to glide over it as simply as if the ground was covered in new grass.

It was nearly five furlongs away over the sea of gold, and, at times, given the dark walls of the mountain, they were so far out in the wealth she felt like she stood in the middle of the Northern Wastes. A golden wasteland. Then they began to see something altogether different in the gold.

Scales. Colossal scales, scattered here and there.

Redd slipped and nearly fell to his knees, and he gasped the name. "Dear gods, _Smaug_."

The King's hand gestured at one of the thick, shield-like scales that stood upright in the gold. A shield for the stone Kings at Argonath. "The dragon, itself, is a thing of the past, and yet these survive." His gloved hand looked so small beside it, and when Lusis tried to imagine him killing one of these, it made her feel queasy.

Redd edged close to the black and red geometric perfection of the thing. "They're _beautiful._"

"They beguile," the King told him with care. "As long as they are here, so is the sickness, and there are many buried here, Redd, _many_ in this gold…. They all belong to the line of Bard, like the dragon's bones."

They moved through stands of scales, pushed to one side, and then saw a white glimmering, like water, on the living stone wall of the mountain. The Elfking stopped and stiffened. "We are here."

They walked around a large stair and, between it and the wall of the mountain, found a place where the gold gave away to an upwelling of crystal-clear, white, stones. The elf between them shifted weight, he took his next few silent breaths so deeply through parted lips.

He stepped forward. "Yes. I had heard of this place. Rumours of the eastern stair to the Lake of Light." He pulled back his hood and stepped into the radiance around him, all lit up by the eternal torch at the corner of the eastern stair, and the glow of white stones.

And the stones responded to him, immediately, to his presence.

Their rippling light flickered over him, over his dark armour, touched the shining threads in his blue fabric, so that he was suddenly opalescent. The Rangers stood behind him, unable to move in the sudden quickening of the light – it knew him. It chased the steam of his breath, blue to white, in and out, licked against his bent shoulders. It recognized him. He sank down into the rays, and, Lusis swore, it lit him straight through his skin. It turned his hair into strands of starlight and made his half-lidded eyes flash and flicker like oceans under the moon.

"_What in all the_ _stars_?" Redd exhaled in disbelief.

The Elfking took off a glove and lifted a handful of stones he then let trail through his pale fingers. Some of the stones stayed with him, winking constellations in his hand. And then his face shifted from longing to sudden pain. His lips curled in a silent hiss. He shut his eyes and pushed that studded hand out from him.

Lusis' joints suddenly unlocked themselves and she ran. She rushed through the brightness and skidded to a stop, spraying the stones out in all directions. She brushed the things away from his hand with an angry whisper of, "_Get off him_, you shiny maggots."

His weight struck her and she went to one knee with his cheek pillowed against her. He blinked a few times, with glittering seas rolling through the silver domes of his eyes, rapidly. He looked at her, and calm descended. His head cleared.

He straightened away from her, but remained in her gaze. "There are more precious things," his hands closed. His voice was a breathy pulse of emotion. He looked around him with new eyes, keen eyes, his upper body shifting with breaths. And then his focus caught on something, and he nearly smiled at that point, "And, things more intriguing." He was off the stones in a moment.

"Redd!" Lusis scrambled up, slipping in the glassy brightness. The big Ranger caught her, but she pushed his hand aside, "No – go with him! Don't let him alone."

She got herself upright and hurried after the two men, reaching a point where the white stone rippled, so that she could leap from one dune and glide down the next. She found the King with Redd. The huge Ranger tugged a scale from the Lake of Light.

Long, narrow, dark. It was a small scale compared to the red and black obelisks they'd already passed by, and she thought, perhaps, it had come from the very face of the dragon. Or maybe its tongue. If their tongues were scaled. Redd lifted it up slowly. It looked like a targe against him. "This?"

"Yes," the Elfking murmured the words. "Take it in your pack, Redd. I can scarcely stand to look at it, now." His eyes were glittering with white stones as he turned to take in Lusis, "And this is not a good place for me to push matters."

Lusis spoke slowly to him. "You need to leave."

His eyes shut in a cloud of reveries for a moment and his teeth bared in a hiss as he came out into the world again, "This place. This place is sick with dreaming." He shook out his starlight hair and they started back, shoulder-to-shoulder, with Redd tucking the dark scale into a bag.

They did not come out the way they had gone in.

The horses were in the foothills. Lethroneth stood in a moth-grey cloak, in the mist, nearly invisible and so still that, for a long time walking from the mountain, Lusis thought she was a statue set to mark the way. But she was an elf, and as soon as the Elfking came in sight of her, she turned her moonlight face away. "My King," she whispered and had to pause, "you are much affected."

His voice purred, "Then I will leave you, Lethroneth. You have done well."

She refused to move, even to acknowledge his words. She held her hand over her heart and did not dare to look at him. So Lusis did. And even clamped down tight under the elven mask of civility there was something manifest about him, some catalyst laid open in him and honed to a barefaced luster that was magnetic.

Lusis thought he was more beautiful than ever, having walked into that vault of his sorest temptation and come away victorious.

She got to her horse and followed him down the hill.

Redd pulled apart to ask her, "Could you _believe_ that wealth?"

She shook her head, in awe. "Wealth, yes… but did you see what they'd built? The blue halls. The plumb lines for furlong on furlong in every direction. Dwarves are an outstanding race of beings."

He grinned at her before he looked back at the King. "Trust _you_ to see the forest."

"What does that mean?" she glanced aside at him and then curled her lip. "Never mind. You read too much, Redd."

"There is no such thing." He chuckled in response. "You could do with more reading."

"At least reading's value is more enduring to me than that gold would be," Lusis chuckled. "The Hoard is worth more, I think."

Redd suddenly looked proud, and smiled at her.

She nodded at the road before her. "Maybe so. But my life found another road, Redd, and it has lessons and histories of its own." She suffered a fleeting memory of her thin arm twisting slowly, until it snapped above the sound of shrieking she had no longer even been sure was her own. That was before she had ever met the Buckmasters.

But Redd didn't know about that life. He didn't suspect.

He looked down the hill at the King dismounting from the elk. "We'd better see what's going on." Redd's hand found a throwing axe with incredible ease, just in case something came at the King.

Lusis stood in her stirrups. "He doesn't look distressed. Just tired. Or… afire. Both, I think... I believe that was a battle for him back there. The Lake of Light wanted him – wanted to claim him like he claimed the land, but darker somehow. It's bad news wrapped in glorious packaging. Or maybe just bad news for him."

"Yes. I'd like to write it up… but I can't figure out why the white stones did as they did. It's like they were aware. They loved him. And hurt him." He shook his head, "But they are only stones. Still, did you see their light become changeable when he went to them?"

"I think the light changed because it was following his heartbeat." Lusis cocked her head at the straight back of the King. "Eithahawn said the Elfking figured out how to use gemstones to protect the forest – because Mirkwood has no Ring of Power, am I right?"

Redd looked grim. "Yes. It does not. Those rings are powerful, but they're bad news in glorious packaging, as you so adeptly put it, Lusis."

"Well, adeptly put or not, it means he _knows_ how to use those stones. And, this mine being nearest, that he's used their like to safeguard his people. Given he _invented_ the means, I bet he _knows _the method deep down in those silver bones of his." She said to Redd. "When he went to those stones, they were already sort of… tuned to him. Do you follow?"

Redd straightened and then warmed. "Like reading. Like when you learn to read and you can't look at words again without knowing what they mean. Reading the stones. The stones being read. The words know us, because we know the words."

"Yes. They've met before." She murmured, and had smoothed the conversation off like raindrops by the time she reached the King. "Did you need a rest, my Lord?"

"Not at all," he looked at the night, his hood down around his tall shoulders and his hair flickering in the breeze. His eyes blinked slowly, for long enough that he could enjoy a breath of fresh air before they opened. "The deeps of that place are lovely, but they are cold, dark, and sterile. How much better is the warmth and open air?"

"Much," Lusis slipped off her horse and looked out into the night. The great elk had already wandered down to a brook for water, and she wondered if the horses were cool enough to drink. Then she looked up at the stars, lovingly. "Much better." She turned to him and nodded her head, "Put those ugly stones behind you, Elvenking. They are common. You are not."

His head tipped, and, for a moment, before the evenness overtook it, he looked astonished.

It occurred to her that there was a reversal in his thinking. He was valuable, but did not see himself as nearly as invaluable as that Lake of Light. Not to his people. Maybe not to himself. She, meanwhile, couldn't count the vast number of stars in the sky. But there was _one_ King of Mirkwood.

She turned to lead her horse downhill and muttered, "You misunderstand."

They stood in silence for a long moment.

"Lusis Buckmaster," his voice drifted after her. "Your human eyes cannot see them in the night."

She froze and spotted Redd walking his horse behind the King. He had stopped moving as well. Her hand went to the sword. It would serve her better than the bow and arrow in the gloom.

The King went on, "But your Rangers are back. They will pass below us soon. Very soon. I thought we might stop to greet them."

Redd hustled his horse downhill and hurried, with Lusis, toward the road. Their efforts spooked the bull elk, which charged up to stand nearer the King. He caught the ruff of its neck and glided up to his seat there.

Aric's horse came into view first and, when he sensed a presence, he took out his sword and a spill of close to fifteen Rangers spread out to cover the land beneath them. They knew which side of the road to suspect, because Lusis and Redd were making enough noise, coming.

Icar wheeled his horse around and raised his sword.

"Icar, easy!" Steed called out.

Lusis laughed, "Don't you dare stab at me you great pair of bollocks."

"Lus-? Lusis! Are you unbalanced?" Aric barked at her as Lusis appeared out of tree shadow and pulled her horse with her. "Too much sugar? Or didn't you get enough potato in your childhood to be able to make decisions properly?"

Redd opened his arms and walked towards them, "Who runs up on Rangers in the middle of the night?"

"We were going to ask you," Steed laughed and rode over to greet them. "Come to see us back to the dockyards? Well, there are a few more of us now," he gestured at the Rangers around him, "and they might need to make camp in the yard. No doubt the man in charge is going to have all kinds of grievances about that."

The Elfking's elk glided onto the road. He shone a spark of sudden silver in the moonlight as the elk turned a circle. His voice was chill and crisp. "Have no fear, I am content." His colourless eyes scanned the collected and he raised his head, "Welcome to my lands."

"His lands?" Icar's horse edged closer to Lusis' as she mounted.

"A _lot_ has happened, Icar." She told him and checked the stars again, "It will be dawn in less than four hours. We've had a long night. There are walking shadows with stolen human eyes out here. I think we should go home and rest."

"Uhm. No," Icar whirled a fingertip in air, "back up? _What's_ out here, right now?"

The Elfking chuckled as he turned the elk. "I am weary. You will follow me."

There were twelve Rangers. As Rangers went, it was a huge number.

There weren't that many Northern Rangers yet in the world. And four of them had more experience than Steed, who was the one of them whose life had been most knit into being a Ranger. They seemed pleased with the prosperous town of Lake Township. The roads were being developed now, with rocks being crushed and put onto streets. There were even cobbles going into some locations. Dawn was coming when they ambled into town. Speed had necessitated the hiring of horses as they'd passed some of the Northern outposts. There were heavily armed Rangers walking down, even now, over miles of ankle and knee-height brush, coming for the horses. They were likely Buckmasters, or fellows of the family crest.

It was expensive doing anything in the North.

The expense would go before the Council, and it would be paid, or she'd hammer some heads until money came out the other side.

They ambled through town.

The King took the front way in. Arriving with the Rangers gave him the perfect excuse to have gone out with Lusis and Redd. It wasn't far, and he was often up late. She began to wonder if he ever really slept, or if he just lay, eyes shut, lost in thought. She could believe that of him.

Once the Elfking reached the yard, the elk darted in one direction and he glided to the ground without a backward glance. The rest of them had to stop their horses and dismount. The Elfking waited for them. He was tall, the King, and stood with the human Rangers slowly lining before him.

One of the dark, gruff Rangers waited until the King walked along the line and passed him to say, "I never heard of an elf taking over human lands. I never heard of an elf who cared enough for our kind."

The Elfking's brows bobbed up at that, "That may be true in this Age. But we are all _Erusen_ – the Children of Iluvatar."

The grubby man spit onto the stones, "Who's that?" he feigned.

The Elfking looked from him to Lusis and she shut her eyes, elf-like in her mortified disbelief. When she opened them again, the Elfking's serene face was at the edge of cracking into an actual smile. She could tell. When he passed too close to actual mirth, he developed the light impressions of dimples. He turned. "Are the rest of you similarly uninformed?"

Lusis swung out. "Listen, I'm in charge of the local troop. Are _any_ of you _anything_ but solitaries? Because you're going to be answerable if you stay."

"So Steed told us," the man speaking to her had straggling brown hair and blue-grey eyes. He glanced over her. "You're a small one. Pretty one for a Ranger. There are better things you could be doing with your time." He motioned at her face negligently.

"This life is my choice," she told him calmly. "Not yours."

"Bad choice," he actually smiled at her this time. "I'm in charge. Name is Argus."

"All of them?" her brows drew up. "There are twelve of you."

A heavily muscled redheaded man grinned at her, "All that, and she can count too, boss."

This was more like it. She was used to the good-natured digs of Northern Ranger men. They were, in general, used to privations, and desperate hardship. It made them hard men on the outside, but the tempering inside was gentler for most. They came to appreciate companionship, peace, and to see each person as a rather unique creation. Difference wasn't a threat to them. The failure of different parts to pull together was.

Right then, Argus' eyes jumped to follow the King. Lusis could see the mistrust there, not of elves endemically, they were known to be good friends to men, but of the Mirkwood King. He did have a reputation for being crafty and rather maverick. But Rangers also respected power and strength. Lusis straightened and said, "So, we've had a few problems here. First is that there is a very large collection of men of questionable purpose hereabouts. They raided once to try to drive out the elves who have given their protection to this town. Lake Township, by the way, is right on the edge of Mirkwood territory, so I see the Council's asking the Elfking for help as a rather natural decision."

"You'd probably be the only one," Argus told her. Rangers didn't mince words.

"The Council acted with courage, Argus." She said flatly. Because there should have been no question about that. "And it's probably going to save their town."

Argus nodded in grudging agreement with this. He could imagine, it seemed, the kind of worry that would drive a man who couldn't just pick up stakes and travel out of the way of trouble, to then go to the great unknown Mirkwood and seek the infamous Elfking.

"Our first problem – the Fire Salamander and her nests."

All of their heads rose and turned in her direction. One of the younger Rangers, not much her senior, stepped out to ask, "Does it yet live?"

"No. My troop, a trio of elves, and the Elfking slew it." She nodded at the young Ranger. "He cut off its head, if you'd like to see it. Maggots are having at it right now, but I doubt that would bother you." Rangers used live maggots to keep open wounds from rotting. She'd done it herself. "The other problems are a bit more difficult to nail down. Spirits, with just enough substance to do harm, have begun to walk the night out here. Anyone they find alone, they will not hesitate to kill."

Redd added to this, "Then they steal your eyes."

Argus' brows went up. "This is a new beast to me."

"And they attack man and elf. They can be killed if you carry enough King's Light." She held out her sword, "elf steel holds it well."

"Bad luck for us," Argus said to her. He drew a long and vicious-looking sword of human make and looked at the sunrise along its steel. It was patched in places, but patched well, and heartlessly sharp. He slid it home in the scabbard again.

The Elfking asked, "Do you oppose the idea of carrying a sword or fighting knife of our handiwork, new Ranger?"

"Argus," the man tapped his blood-stained leather cloak and remembered to add, "my Lord."

Lusis felt her patience worn after a night without sleep in the vast, lonely, pit whose eerie silence made haunting the beauty of Erebor. She set her hands on her hips and barked at them, "Will you take on elf metal or not?" The Rangers actually jumped. Hell, people in their beds in the house probably jumped.

Argus looked from Steed to Lusis and back and muttered, "_Fires_."

"You should see her gut an orc," Aric started to grin mightily at the other Ranger captain. "She splits them open like a cooked turkey and all the steam coming out."

Now the Elfking's eyelids fluttered, and he exhaled, "_Fires_, indeed."

"And you listen to her?" The Dunedain rolled his shoulders and peered at Lusis. "She's one of us? It's rare a woman in our number chooses such a life."

Icar shrugged at this, "But do you doubt the blood of the Buckmasters? Nevrmen Buckmaster is her father. I suppose that wouldn't be such a bad thing, would it? Or that her uncle was Lengrmar before the War of the Ring took him, fighting with his brothers for Gondor."

Argus started to smile. "Is she belonged to Nevrmen and his own? The messenger men?" Few things were consistent about the North, but resupply, letters from home, and a quick delivery of horses? No army could endure without them, and they came at great personal risk.

And the truth was, Lengrmar had found Lusis barely surviving in a broken hunting shack in a Northern town raided by orcs. This was back when she hadn't really _had_ a name of her own. The grizzled man who'd been staying there had died to kill the orc with designs to eat her, and she'd covered him in the one blanket they had, and guarded him with his own knives as he froze onto the floorboards. She hadn't even known his name. But Lusis would never tell them any of this. Who in their right mind gave up the pride of the _Dunedain_ for the near certainty of the blood of Angmar? Who was that foolish?

Likewise, she would never even indirectly sully the _Dunedain_ blood of her father and kin.

She felt herself avert her gaze, slide her eyes to one side, and realized it was something she'd come to by way of watching elves. In point of fact almost as soon as she moved, the Elfking's voice found her. "She is weary with long work. Decisions must be made by the time the Daystar rides high, but trouble her no more this morning." He raised a hand, and Lusis crossed over to stand by his shoulder.

"Please rest until then," Lusis told the cagey Rangers. "My troop will see to you."

The Elfking's extended hand dropped slowly and two sections stepped out from the dark shadows of the main building. "They have not yet accepted an offer of elf steel. Their fealty is yet in doubt. But they are Northern Rangers. See to their comfort."

Merilin and Arasell glided out of their sections and bowed.

The Elfking took leave of them all and went to Kasia's in the company of waiting Nimpeth.

Lusis hung back to catch up with her troop. She could feel the new Rangers staring at her as she walked up the stairs to Jan Kasia's, so tired by now that her entire body felt numb. Very likely the King was already deep in his room, and she envied him. Today… today she could have used a bed. Her brain felt disconnected. Paper wasps buzzed in the space between her ears.

Once they were in the door of Kasia's manor, Steed's hand extended to rub the middle of her back. He was, of all of them, the one most closely related to the _Dunedain_, with blood strong and pure enough that he could talk to horses. He nodded at her, "Rest, Lusis. I will talk to them. They must remember they didn't come here for the elves, they came for the men."

"How large was their camp?"

"Forty strong," Steed stretched himself and glanced back at Aric and Icar in the doorways. "It's good to be back to troop, and in warmer climes. Perhaps half their curiosity was that they wanted to see tall trees again, and in bloom, these men. We'll lose them if they see no action."

"You're getting ahead of yourself, Steed. We don't even _have_ them yet." Lusis tried to focus. Rays of light broke into the room and dazzled her. She'd been operating on so little sleep. "If they do agree, get them to walk a circuit of the town, and around the lake in pairs. Buy us time until the Council can call a meeting of the forces, put them in units, and draw up assignments between the Rangers and the men they will train." Her hand circled in air, "Feed them and rest them in the evening. They must accept elf steel soon, or we put them in deep danger, Steed."

"He's… he's not the elf they expected to see, I suppose. Not from their distant blood. There is one in Rivendell of which the _Dunedain_ can only approve… you may not know this." Steed noted to her, as ever, somehow tactfully closer to the truth of her bloodline than was comfortable. "They've had occasion to work with Rivendell in years past."

"Rivendell? This is _Long Lake_. Nothing so fancy. We are fortunate that he is a hardheaded being, the Elfking, to be here at all when its needs are not the size of Gondor, or the Quest for the Ring." She glanced back at the fire where the King reclined in the lush white chair that was now considered his own. Ewon stood silently by him, and she put out of her mind the idea he had come at the call of the Lake of Light, but then, somehow, withstood it. But he _had_ refused it. It reassured her. "Steed, elves are good. By their _most basic nature_ they fight to be _good_. And we are lucky in our cousins. He's no different."

"He's very different. Very. Look at him. What other elf would come here? And now Redd said he's King of these people and added this land to Mirkwood holdings? He's good, yes. But also good and clever." Steed kept his voice down. "He's not like any elf I've met on the face of it."

Icar drew in close. "It's that cunning inside of him that causes those Rangers to fear." He nodded his concern to her.

"May the Stars save us all," Lusis rubbed her forehead, "if men come to liken brilliance with wickedness." She blinked at the floor. "If they don't accept the steel, thank them, supply them, and release them, but do not allow them to think cooperation with the Elfking and Mirkwood is not an obligation here. It is his own land, and he, and his elves are protecting it."

"There have been a lot of changes here, indeed," Icar said aside, wide-eyed at her dedication.

"You need," Redd squeezed her shoulder, "to _sleep_, little Buckmaster. That head will overheat. Think of this when you wake."

She nodded in agreement, swiftly becoming too tired to bother with speaking. But she did note, "You need to sleep too, lug. That leaves you in charge, Steed."

"Understood." He nodded at Aric and Icar, who had gathered close together to Lusis and Redd. He waved them out the door. "Maybe they'll be happier after we feed them. Go."

When she reached the hide couch, Lusis handed over the borrowed bow and quiver to Ewon. She waited on the King, who, in fact, was speaking elvish to Ewon in fits and starts. Ewon looked patient, quiet, and kind. This was probably a good thing. The King's eyes still occasionally glittered with white stones and he sighed deeply. Lusis slumped on the hide couch, and then sank into the pillows… and then picked up her feet and lay out on the give of the wadding, so different than the bench upstairs.

Close to an hour later, she woke suddenly, and found Avonne eating boiled eggs and staring at her from the floor. Lusis found herself covered in a fur throw. She stumbled up and around the hide couch, then back to retrieve her sword, and blundered up the stairs.

The Elfking was in his rooms curled like a cat, his eyes lightly closed, and his hair in a long tumble over the edge of the bed where it glowed in the morning sun streaming through the window. His eyes opened as she moved her bench into place across the door and lay in the unforgiving rays of morning. Slowly, he sat up on the bed. He came to the door and got her. He tugged the bench just inside and against the shadowy front wall, and set her down on it.

"Even I am not that hardhearted." He said to her, and his eyes blinked slowly. He was spent.

She put her head in her hands, trying to focus, to make enough sense to deal with the King's wits.

The rustle of fabric made her look to him. He'd sunk down before her. "No one will think less of you if you choose to sleep in comfort instead of on this wood." His fingertips touched it.

She looked up at the king. "No, you're wrong. _I_ will."

The silken robes he wore made a soft whoosh of noise as he stood, and she looked up at him. His face was flat, wintry. "Is there some perversity in the nature of Rangers that makes it impossible for them to listen to me? Or is it yet another failure of my character?" His tone was hard and tired.

"It's not you," Lusis suddenly felt like she blundered to wakefulness too quickly. She shook her head. "It's not you. You have so much weighing on you, Elfking, so many responsibilities, and flawlessness is the demand. _Too_ much. But if the Rangers turn away, you aren't to blame."

His eyes shut to her, "If _they_ turn away." His voice was a low growl. "Then who is," his lips curled as he leaned to her, "are you finding fault with the _Dunedain_? Is that a possibility? Are they not the men of Etain? Am I not from the blackest pit?" His eyes glittered.

Lusis stared at the Lake of Light burning out from his gaze – the white gems that _were_ from the blackest pit – and that she now hated, and she was steady. "If they leave this place and refuse to work for you, my Lord, I will call on the Buckmasters themselves to come down here and train these human forces. We have crisscrossed the North for generations, seeing to the wellbeing of our brothers. You can _believe_ that the Darkness fears us, our arrows, and our blades. Our blood is as good as any Dunedain. We will not fail man or elf," she paused a breath, "and we will not fail _you_."

The Elfking straightened and closed his eyes for a long moment. She stood and waited just to be there for the sake of being there for him. He hadn't failed her. Hadn't failed the Master of Boats on the way in. Hadn't failed Lake Township. Her esteem for him had gone well beyond promises.

His long body listed away from her, and he exhaled the words, "There is _much_ amiss with me," at last. A pool of dove grey silk slithered away from her to the bed. "Lethroneth's words are true."

Lusis threw up her hands, too tired, and stretched thin by her disagreement with the actual blooded Dunedain men. She made a growl and barreled after him. "_Forget_ Lethroneth. _Forget_ them all. What a pretty torture it must be to love them, when you love even their scourges. It seems no one ever told you that those who live in the shelter of the powerful and are delivered by their sacrifice can crush a man with their reproach." She pointed at him, "Your father left you _unprotected_. But we Rangers know it – to those we champion we are often disreputable, or disgraceful. Seedy. Can you believe it? We _die_ for them. Or maybe you do not _allow_ yourself to think how those who take no wild risks, can _never_ _be_ wildly mistaken. When you need only _follow_, you do not know the wounds of command. And those whips. You shouldn't care for them so much that you strike yourself with them. Yes, you have done things wrongly in your life." She set her foot on the wood box at the end of his bed and shoved it into the footboard with a crack. "That does not mean the wrong is you, and the good is less good."

"You know nothing." He snapped the thick gold coverlet from the bed in a massive swirl of fabric in air. It settled around him, dangling from his hands. He didn't look at her. He was trying to contain his temper, which blazed out of the furnace in his chest like a white-hot firestorm.

She bared her teeth and turned to fetch the bench, grumbling, "I know every time I set foot in this blasted room we have a fight. I know _that_." She shoved the bench at the open door and stood bolt upright when a large number of stunned elves scattered back.

She stared, suddenly aware of who he was and where they abided relative to one another in the world again, and she blanched with horror at herself.

"Lusis," Eithahawn whispered. He was pale as a kettle of milk, his blue-green eyes darting from her to the King, and back. "Lusis, my friend."

That soft whisper cut through the King's reserve and his head snapped up, "Get out."

Elves backed away, Dorondir's long arm extended, and the door was shut.

Then the King bowed his head and collected himself. Lusis stood by the door, afraid to move even to apologize.

The Elvenking crossed the space to her and raised his head. He drew the golden coverlet up and slipped it around her shoulders.

"I am tired," she bowed to him and used a time-honored line from her rather stormy childhood. "My behavior… was inexcusable."

"Tell me," his voice was chill, "how did I come to command such fiery loyalty in you?" His expression was cold, even aloof, but given his pride he was allowing her much.

She tried to think of an answer to that question, and hit on something. "Elfking, would it interest you to know that I'm not a Buckmaster at all? I'm probably some girl of Angmar who was exposed on a mountainside to die? If people knew, do you think they would expect me to be wicked? Naturally? I do."

His head tipped. "I… know what you are. You are not wicked."

"Great," she went toward the bench. "Then I know what you are too. Also not wicked."

"You will take the bed."

She redirected herself. The bed looked inviting. And huge, "Where will you sleep?"

His voice was calmer now, "We do not sleep, Lusis. We simply reflect, lost in waking dreams. One day you will come to understand the difference." He settled into a thickly padded chair and pulled the fur coverlet there around himself. His eyelids sank. "And you shall take the bed."

It was the most genuine and most sustaining sleep she'd had since leaving the Halls. She lay down wrapped in his woodland scent. She woke only twice, once to the sound of the King in soft conversation with elves in the broad daylight. He was far across the room, at the door. Once again when he came in and his fingers brushed her shoulder. "It is nearing the decision of the Rangers. I will have need of you soon."

In other words, it was time to sleep in the bath.

The hot water was its own timer.

When it cooled, it would wake her.

Five of the Rangers were playing cards. The rest had nothing to give, and looked on. She scarcely recognized them after they'd bathed. They still looked rough, but clean, with even their leather washed, and they smelled a lot better.

Lusis shoved her way in among them and glanced up at the sky.

"Hello again, Buckmaster," Argus said around the long pipe in his teeth.

"Well hi," she glanced over the cards around her. The elves didn't have games like this as a form of entertainment. She could see that Merilin, atop the wall overlooking them, was dead interested in the progression of the game. She glanced over the pot, which was a pair of new leather gloves, a couple of pieces of coloured sea glass, an antique coin out of Angmar. She nodded. That was about the extent of a Ranger's wealth. "Sorry to interrupt you, but I was wondering if you were interested in earning a few of these," she dropped coppers into the pot, "or not."

Several of the Rangers sat forward so fast they nearly clocked heads together.

"Do you think you can play me for my troop," Argus sighed at her, "and win?"

Lusis stared down at them, flat-faced. "Enough games. Are you soldiers of the North or not?" The man on her right began to move his hand toward his sword. Lusis picked up a foot and stomped on his hilt. With her foot so close to his crotch, the man's whole body jolted. She leaned over him. "Did you know that, among the elves, violence towards the group is a no-no? You should consider that your new credo. And be truly glad I do." She put her foot down and looked at Argus. "I need a decision."

He was trying hard to smother a smile. "I've never met a Buckmaster woman before," he said, "and, meeting you, I think it's a miracle I've ever met a Buckmaster _man_."

"They prefer us this way." She said dryly.

"She forgot to add _Or else_," said the youngest of Argus' troop – who looked younger than Lusis. Not quite yet a man, in fact.

Lusis was imposingly well fed, well built, cut out from the sun overhead and she told him. "When the Captains are talking, children should mind their tongues."

Argus set down his pipe and fragments of burning ash made black spots into the white wood of the low table they'd gathered around. "Sit down, Lusis Buckmaster."

She sat down and they dealt her in. She knew the game, and glanced over her hand indifferently, the same look as was generally used by the Elfking when he seemed not to care about a thing, but was actually watching it quite closely.

She won on her third hand, which was a bit of a stroke of luck. Aric. He was the one you wanted for cards. He bluffed and swaggered, and overpowered other players. Lusis smiled at the gloves. "What the fires am I supposed to do with these? Wear them on my feet? They're _huge_."

Laughter sounded around her.

Of the people at the table, the youngest was likely the poorest, so she chucked them at the young man who had quipped about her earlier. He caught them with a sudden bubbling of excitement. She didn't protest when two of Argus' men reached out and took the coppers either. They had greater need than she did.

Argus saw this with compassionate eyes. And then he looked at her. "They will pay?"

"They will pay you." She had no doubt of that, and nodded.

"Buckmaster," Argus laid down his cards and knitted his fingers. He stared at her, his grey-blue eyes like a pair of rivets. "I'm one of the blood. I'll know if you're lying. So tell me… do you trust him?"

She'd had more than one occasion to think about this, and she was ready to answer. "You can trust in the good in him. Yes. You can trust in him."

He hadn't looked away from her, "Then why don't I believe that?"

The light changed and Lusis glanced at one of the house servants bringing a pitcher of water to the table from across the yard. Lusis waited for the girl to finish and draw away before speaking. This was standard behavior for the secretive Rangers so the group remained patient. "This King… almost everything that he does is a layer over layers. He's experienced and canny, but he is as insolent as he is elegant. He can be… abrasive, and in his mind you'll find he has angles in his angles. I think your problem is that he is neither plain nor straightforward. But if you trust that, at his most basic, he's a force for _good_, you will learn. Time will teach you the true meaning of my words, when I say this to you…. He _must_ be watched, but he _can_ be trusted."

There was silence among the Rangers.

Lusis got to her feet. "Those who are willing to follow him need to go straight through the doors to Kasia's keep and sit at the table. But don't delay. By my reckoning, it will be noon in only a handful of minutes," she finished her water and got to her feet, "and you can be replaced."

Argus actually laughed on the heels of this. "Buckmasters. So superior."

She walked away from them, "Time is wasting." But, in actual fact, she was hoping that this goad, and the money, would be enough of an impetus to have some of them come aboard. It would not be possible to teach human forces with elves. The wondrous bodies of the elves threw off the elements. They were lighter than air, agile as a flying bird, and stronger than several men. Humans would not be carrying out their nightly patrols by spilling over the rooftops as fast as swallows, with eyes that could all but see in the dark. Human forces needed to learn human methods. And as wondrous as the elves, in fact, were, she knew the answer to their grandeur was lounging in the sun and playing cards in the courtyard. And they _could not_ be replaced.

Inside, the Elfking stood in statuesque stillness. He had been that way since she'd come downstairs. He was perfectly motionless, the silvery threads of his pale golden clothes not even glinting to reveal small motions, like humans made while breathing. His long red cloak was draped over a chair. This one had a deep hood with dark gold lining – the colours of his Kingdom at last.

Lusis joined Redd, who was both guarding the King and watching Icar draw. Lusis brightened when she saw that Icar was actually drawing the Elfking now – it was a very good likeness. "Redd, is this your book?"

"It is," he smiled eagerly. "Icar put Nimpeth and Amathon in there this morning. And we're all there. Show her the picture you drew of her, Icar!"

"Shush and don't disturb me now. Elves are hard." He ignored the fact he was blushing, so Lusis kindly did the same. "With elves so much of their emotion is buried."

"I just got done writing down what happened with Steed and Argus's troop up North, the work of gathering those Rangers. That Argus man…. He's something worth having, Lusis. Icar ran into a band of orcs on the fourth night, and Argus charged them with half his band. He ran them into the other half. There were a good thirty orcs of them."

She shuddered. "They all died?"

"He half skinned one, dried the hide, and we came down the mountains under that flag on the way back as a warning." Icar said and glanced up at Lusis. "Have you ever heard of it?"

She nodded soberly. "We do what works."

Steed came out of the back with a basket of fruit – there was fruit everywhere these days – and set it down. He tossed an apple to Aric, who walked in from the servant's quarters, looking pleased with himself. Which couldn't bode well.

The youngest of Argus' troop peeked in the door and Redd looked at Lusis.

"Oh boy," Aric's eyes widened as he sank down on the hide couch.

Redd pointed directly at Lusis. "No, mother. We already have enough mouths to feed."

"Shut up, ninny," her lip curled and she looked out at the young man. She thought he might be between sixteen and nineteen, if she was being generous. She nodded at him as he picked up a basket full of folded silk, and topped with a bouquet of luscious peonies.

He brought the basket to the table and set it down there. "Captain Lusis… someone left this outside. There's more stuff there too." He glanced back at the doorway.

"Those are offerings to the King." She stood. "Just how some of the humans of Lake Township choose to give their thanks. What's your name?"

"Elow Thoms." He glanced at the motionless Elfking and ducked his head a little. His voice dropped, "I've never met a King before. I didn't think he would be so…." His hands gestured in air, about his face, as if indicating light coming out. Or beauty.

Lusis couldn't help the chuckle from her lips. "He is that. I suppose, very," she glanced at the elf and back to the boy, "spotless." She gestured at the couch. "Come sit down, Elow."

He picked up the basket and brought it over with him, setting it on the small, narrow table there. He picked up a loose peony. "I guess this will suit him after all. I thought it was an odd thing to give to a King – a flower." He snuck a glance at the Elvenking's tall figure, "But he's sort of like a flower himself."

"He is," Icar said patiently above his shading, "if you dipped one half of it in blood, and the other in molten elf steel." He didn't look up from his drawing.

Steed chuckled and threw an apple at the boy, which he caught without looking. He might have been little more than a child, but he was a Ranger child all the same. Like Steed, he was blooded, and he'd been born to it.

Three more men came in and settled on the hide couches. As they came to rest, one of them joked, "Fires. Someone said there would be fresh bread, but all I see is a basket of daisies. Odd diets, elves."

Argus brought the rest with him. They came to the end of the hide couches and the King's pale head turned to glance over them. He gave no indication of whether they were welcome or not. His silver dome eyes simply glided upward toward the stairs as Eithahawn came down them. He was in dark red with gold threads, his leaf clip in his hair.

"I will see to arrangements, my King," he inclined his golden head to the Elfking and then walked to greet the Rangers. His head tipped forward to one side, a setting that elves seemed to consider a warm hello. "I am the Kingdom's seneschal. It is down to me to welcome you. It is also down to me to ensure you are properly supplied and compensated. If you will follow me, I will make record of you."

Argus stood and stared at the Elfking for a long moment, but then followed the Kingdom's seneschal and his elven guard, Dorondir. Eithahawn was tall, golden, and to all outside appearances, affable and warm. He was considered more effortless for human interaction. Dorondir, his dark-haired opposite, was so very new to humans that he hardly trusted the Rangers at his back, and he certainly wouldn't allow them at his Lord's.

The Elfking's brows rose as they departed. He seemed in a decent humour as he told the banked fire, "Dorondir has quite a lot to tell his Lord in Rivendell… supposing he survives the rudeness of the Northern Rangers."

Lusis' troop looked at him en masse. She blinked, "Is… is he a spy for your friend in Rivendell?"

"Lusis, the problem with planting an elf as a spy is that they do so often come to love the places and peoples upon which they are to report," the Elfking stepped into the light and his paleness cast a halo through the room. "In my experience, if you put an elf anywhere they will find the good in it. Good is attracted to them. How much more so when placing a Rivendell elf in Mirkwood? My people are good. They are, I would venture, _best_, in fact. He is well thought of here."

"He's a spy," she said slowly, and thought of Lethroneth. How loyal was she? How torn?

The Elfking suddenly threw himself into the white chair and he actually smiled in amusement, if briefly – so suddenly young and gorgeous with mischievous crinkles aside his nose. "It is wrong of me to surround the child in _so many_ humans. He is unfamiliar with them. He has little interplay with men in Mirkwood, and was accustomed to only the most blooded of Dunedain, and only rarely in Rivendell." He had to look away, shield his face a moment. "When I imagine _any_ of Kasia's lot in Rivendell. _Ah_. Why they might break a phial of tears Glorfindel balanced on a spec of filigree _Ages_ back, or drink from the bathing well. _All manner_ of howling grievance would break loose." The King's silver disk eyes pondered the ceiling to give him a chance to pull his humour under control again. "He is not ready for these humans. No elf could be. What _will_ he tell good Lord Elrond?"

There was a pregnant pause during which Lusis twitched and tried not to laugh, imagining Dorondir penning a letter to his Lord comprised entirely of one long shriek.

"You're a bit of a rascal." Redd blinked, his fingertips on the pages of his Chronicle.

"You should have met my wife." He said reflexively, and his lightness vanished. He went ashen and froze in that painful moment. The mask of emptiness slid to place over him.

"She would have been a good match to your wits, if she was mischievous." Redd said softly.

He shut his eyes and pulled back into the chair, away from the words. His voice was lifeless, "We have many things to do, Lusis Buckmaster. Many. Your troop must be brought up to speed on last night's activities, and there is the matter of the scale."

"What scale is this?" Icar looked up from his drawing at last.

Redd and Lusis glanced at one another and Redd told the younger Ranger, "We might have something for you to draw at that, Icar." He wouldn't believe them if they told him.

The Elfking rose slowly, "And I can spare you no longer, Lusis Buckmaster. Your pain must begin. I must know what happened to you, for my theories are dark, the evidence, darker."

There was suddenly the silhouette of an elf in the door, slender, long, with a step so light it was noiseless. His bearing was flawless. He came into the human hall, to its high closed spaces, without undo alarm. He passed out of shadow and into rays of light, pale, with a lovely face and large blue eyes. His hair was long, sunny blond, and artfully braided back. He was dressed in Silvan green.

The King saw him and backed away a series of steps, his eyes wide.

The elf by the door bowed himself down somewhat blushingly. His voice was so light and melodic that Rangers straightened, and Lusis felt herself smile upon hearing it. The young elf's head eased to one side. "I… had rumour of this… but my heart could not believe."

The Elfking stood, rooted, with his face artfully blank. He stared.

The young bowman tried again, "I know it has been… long… not in time, but in parting. One can feel the passage of an Age not at all, but one single absence… keenly." He glanced to check the King.

Kasia appeared in the door to his keep and eyed the bowman, and the young elf's pale blue eyes glided at the noise, but he didn't draw on the Master of Boats. Kasia ignored the newcomer and bowed to the King, something he tried to do at least once a day. "You should come see this, Elfking."

The Elvenking didn't stir.

"He will come, presently," said the gracious young elf. "Forgive my interruption."

Kasia seemed surprised by this etiquette.

But Eithahawn swept up the outside stairs, paperwork in hand, already speaking to his King in a beautiful burble of Elvish. He made it two steps through the door before the young elf turned and opened his hands in greeting, "Eithahawn."

The golden elf stopped. It was a struggle for him to pull emotion under control, and strong emotion was a thing most un-elven, so his body caved, his shoulders bent, he looked down, and pressed his hand over his chest. He froze as tightly and completely as the Elfking had. It was like a magic spell.

The sunny-haired elf advanced the room, his expression suddenly taking on a heartbreakingly genuine atmosphere of apprehension. He spoke a few musical words in elvish and then said, "What is it? What have I done?" to the King.

The Elfking's brittle cold snapped. He swept down the room and passed the young elf with the flat admonishment, "This is _not_ a good time, Legolas."

The young elf turned, his King was so quickly by him. "But I have-"

"Hear me, child," the Elfking turned. "Ride to the Halls. Await me there. There is pressing business and you must not distract me from it." He swept out the door and down into the yard, lit up with sun on his fine robes, his white-blond hair flagging. Kasia was forced to run after the tall elf.

By now, Eithahawn stood staring at Legolas.

"There is _never_ a good time," Legolas' great blue eyes found the plank floor, "is there?" He looked up and aside at Eithahawn. "And how have you been – I would call you brother, but it's already in your name, _hanar_."

"You are well travelled, I see. Is that some humour you learned from the dwarves?" Eithahawn's soft and breezy voice had a sudden bite of winter in it.

The sunlit elf half turned. He looked alarmed, and not in the close way of elves. Seeing the earnestness in his expression left one hurting. "Eithahawn, what has happened? Why do you believe I would treat you so poorly?" He extended both hands before him and was ignored.

The golden elf glided closer, suddenly serpentine and perilous, his teeth gritted as he drew in by the new elf, "Because I was raised beside you _does not_ make us kin. You know that. He doesn't _love_ me. But here _you_ are. _For now_."

The blue-eyed elf huffed in a moment of strange entertainment. "Ah, _hanar_, he doesn't love _me_ either. He loves the debris of _her _he can see. And hates it, as he hates feeling." He exhaled, "Her, alone."

They stared at one another, and while Legolas was still amused – hauntingly like the Elfking in the moment he talked about such _ruinous_ emotions – that unpleasant mirth faded to the slow dawning of shock around what they'd spoken aloud to one another.

Eithahawn sank down onto the stairs that led into the room. Legolas stood by him. "You are my Prince." Eithahawn said breathlessly. "I apologize. I was foolish. Unwise."

"You are my brother," Legolas' lips curved into a smile. "And all is forgiven." The Prince of Mirkwood settled his slender body on the stairs and cocked his head at the back of the room, at the salt and pepper shakers – the statuary – that the Rangers had become. His head tipped, his features so compact and lovely, almost girlish as he said, "I do believe we have Rangers."

Eithahawn, who now settled shoulder-to-shoulder with his 'brother', slid his aqua eyes across to the sunny elf. He said, "Yes. You _like_ Rangers."

Legolas glanced at the other elf, and they both looked away quickly as if resisting the urge to laugh. "You have been gone since the beginning of the War of the Ring. Much has happened in the Kingdom, errant Prince."

"If father got Rangers," Legolas gestured at them. "It can't be all bad. Much better than another dragon's bones."

"Yes, well, they're for you, actually," Eithahawn noted brightly.

After that Legolas took a moment to inspect the wooden floorboards between his boots to keep from laughing. He stood up, "You were missed, _hanar_." He bowed to the Kingdom's seneschal and then helped the golden elf up, "Stars, what an outfit. Every time I see you you're grander still. What is your position now?"

"Kingdom's seneschal."

"Oh," Legolas nodded up at the taller elf. "I should have brought a bottle of wine." His brows went up.

It was rare, but Eithahawn's expression broken into the most delighted of smiles and he put his head down. "That is comical, coming from a hero of the War of the Ring. A guardian of the ring-bearer himself."

"All I did was kill some things. I'm good at that," Legolas reassured. "Let's talk to the Rangers." He glanced over them, and though he was smaller than either of his father and Eithahawn, that made him easily the size of Steed – more than the human average. "Who of you is in charge?"

Everyone looked at Lusis and she said, "Hello… my Lord." Nothing underscored the age of the great Elfking like meeting his grown son. She hadn't felt this way with Eithahawn. This Legolas 'hero of the Ring War' and 'pure Guardian of the ring-bearer' made her feel like a silly child. "I serve your King."

The elf, Legolas, tipped his head slowly, suddenly like his father again. "How is he?"

She felt herself redden, "Ah, a lowly Ranger cannot tell you much about that."

"I've never known one," he told her. "How is he?"

"Well enough," Lusis felt gratitude for his steady esteem of them. "Creative."

A spark lit in the young elf's eyes. "Creative… is generous. He is crafty, my father. Some consider his independent thinking to be dangerous." He glanced over their collection.

Redd laughed at this, "We tend to respect that kind of a thing."

"And it will be useless to ask you," he looked over their faces, his harmonious voice growing quiet, "what he is _really_ doing here. If you know." Silence fell over them for a moment and Lusis shut her eyes and heard him say, "There are few things in the world as loyal as a Ranger."

Lusis could do nothing but open her eyes and nod at this. What she knew – having gone into the mountain with the Elfking – she wouldn't disclose to anyone. And Redd, beside her, was just as stalwart.

Eithahawn was called from the door by Merilin, who saw sunny Legolas and suffered a moment of complete elven amazement. He gasped. He set a hand over his lips. He couldn't speak. He made his way into the room with his wide pale eyes locked on Legolas. "Friend," he said, "I did not think I would see you again in this world."

"Merilin," Legolas half turned and went to the section head. Merilin bowed as a matter of course – this was his Prince. Legolas clapped the section head on his shoulders and then stepped back. It was a lot of contact for an elf. "How is the section?" He glanced around him as if they might fall from the rafters, which, Lusis realized, was possible and had happened before.

"Adjusting. They do miss you, young Lord." Merilin bowed.

"And I them." Legolas nodded, "but my ways are varied now. I have to be out in the world."

"In that way, you are like your father, green-leaf," Ewon spoke at the doorway, the courtyard's sun falling over his shoulders and filtering through his dark hair. "You make a path outside of all rubric, Legolas Thranduilion, from a line of rather maverick thinkers." The Elite inclined his head.

"Ewon!" the Prince smiled, opened his arms, and bowed his body forward. One of their distant embraces. "Tell me, did father really just take over a human town?"

"He was invited. Once again," Ewon actually smiled on his way down the stairs. "You know how that goes, Legolas. He's the picture of a King, that one."

"He is like his father," Legolas replied on the end of that. "Though, I hope… not too much."

A meeting of the elves began to converge on the room, as more and more of them rushed to see the beautiful and sunlit prince. In the midst of all this, Eithahawn came through the thronging, a sort of impromptu celebration that now included wine and fruit, and collected Lusis' Ranger band. They walked through the bright yard and across busy dockyards now decorated in new carvings of lilies – just as the quiet parts of the lakes now teemed with them and the life they brought.

The town had begun to spruce up in that regard, with etchings of beech trees full of nuts, and carved flowers – stained in bright colours – sprouting up everywhere. They charmed the King, but did more. They seemed to somehow dignify and unify the Township that, prior, had struggled to keep above the violence on its borders. Now, the town was growing with others from around the lake coming in to look for a decent place to live.

They went down the two sets of stout wood steps off of the docks and onto thick grass overgrown with buttercups and clover, and humming with bees and tiny birds. The land was rich here. Lusis followed Eithahawn. He seemed lost, for a moment, in the blue sky, the sun, and the field of wildflowers, but then he made his way to the broad horseshoe of wood offices under construction under the mound that contained the silver beech.

"These offices are for the guard, but also for inspection of barges," he explained to her. "Such lovely woodwork," he insinuated his long hand between the human carpenters and touched the white wood. "It will do this place justice, and safeguard the tree."

The humans there seemed pleased with his assessment. One of the men straightened, opened a basket and wordlessly handed Eithahawn a silvery beech nut.

"Ah, my thanks," he told them. It lit up with a soft radiance in the palm of his hand. His fingers closed over it and he led them onward. "I feel the King's power in this seed. As they melt into the land, they enrich it."

"The locals have been making these into butter and eating them," Lusis tapped the back of Eithahawn's hand without thinking, but he didn't mind. "So nothing that romantic."

"Not at all," the elf said. "We use them for healing internal ailments, and they are very rich and filling, so all to the good. I hadn't expected the humans to seize on that so quickly." He tucked the nut away into an inner pocket and led them to the open end of the horse-shoe shape of buildings. There were two standing stones to either side, marked with the date, and city name, each explained that the land had been claimed by a great Elfking. She only recognized the elvish from watching the King sign off on documents. The name was translated underneath, and Kasia's name was there too. Metal gates painted white yawned open to the field of wild flowers. Men stooped, laying white stone along the path that the King had taken on the night he claimed the land. It was nearly done. And the Elfking himself stood at the circular end of it.

He looked up at the tree.

"Here they are, my King," Eithahawn said softly.

The Elfking turned and walked by his borrowed son, straight to Lusis. "Gather your strength."

"What's going on?"

He swept in and by her with a glance that said to follow. Lusis and her band did so, going out into the field of sweet grass, bees, and flowers in his wake. They reached the first stand of white aspens whose leaves clattered softly in the wind. A circle of wood benches had been brought here and laid out in the middle. The elves loved such arrangements and the gratitude of the townspeople was great.

The Elfking gestured to the center of these seats and Redd and Lusis saw what stood in the middle with its narrow end shoved into the ground so that it resembled nothing more than a huge black spade in the earth.

Icar blinked and said, "Oh. Now I get it. The _scale_."

Steed nodded, "Not for weighting. But protecting." He frowned at it, startled, "Apparently for protecting a dragon?"

Redd was the only one unsurprised by its appearance here – clearly he had brought it and set it here by the King's command – but now looked up at the King. "But is it not Smaug's, my Lord? And Bard of Dale destroyed that beast."

"Which was quite a job to do," the Elfking said at once, clear commendation in his tone.

For the Rangers who had not been in Erebor the night before this was a _stunning_ moment. They looked at Redd as if he'd just proclaimed himself King of Rhovanion, right in front of the Elfking.

But the Elfking, himself, was not perturbed by the question. He tucked his hands behind his back, loath to risk brushing the thing.

Lusis frowned, "Is it evil? Will it do us harm? You don't have to look at it, my Lord."

"No. Not in itself. But it has a taint upon it. This ground is sewn with the tree's power, and that is quite enough to overwhelm the potency of one wicked scale," his silvery eyes glinted up at Redd, "And it is _not_ Smaug's."

"But there was no other dragon," Redd went pale and said. "Smaug was a male. There were no dragon's eggs to speak of either. That is true, yes?"

"That is accurate as I remember it," the Elfking told him. "I was a bit busy at the time…. Small, male dragon. A deep red in colour. The females are not. They are the true horrors. Larger. Smarter. Cryptic in colour." His fingertips touched his left cheek right below its curved dome of cheekbone. "And to fight them and destroy their nests, one must be eloquent and cunning enough to outsmart them."

Aric gawped at the description, "You had to talk to them?"

"Of course," the Elfking spoke of it dryly. "They are more proud and vainglorious than Kings, dragons. Believe me. Superior to the point of overconfidence, which is a failing we will not repeat. To defeat it, you need to be able to talk to a dragon, and avoid the swell of fascination from its jewel-like eyes. They mesmerize and enchant."

"You're good with words." Lusis agreed, though not, notably, with what he said to his sons.

"Elves are." The King reassured. "I am no special case there. And as to how Bard managed his kill, he shot the dragon straight out of air, which is very difficult to do. Easier, if you happened to know where, prior, it took damage to the throat, though. A line of thrushes flew about its neck, and Bard remembered the long ago story. They'd spoken to him."

This was almost too much for Lusis, "He shot it out of the sky?" She paused. "What?"

"Bard was a singular man," the Elvenking looked at the sole black scale. "A King." It sounded like the Elfking rather missed his compatriot, though his practiced features gave no indication – they were smooth and contained. Still, it was not difficult to imagine that two Kings could see eye-to-eye and might have much in common to commiserate about. "A dragon slayer."

The King circled the spade-like scale. "But this is not the right shape for a dragon. Not even a dragon's tongue, which is patterned with deadly spikes. This scale is too dark for that dragon as well. Black and not red. The underbelly, legs and head, and the massive hands of a dragon, are fused armour plates with an underlay of bone. There are scales, as scales can be understood, but they are long and flow down its flanks, its neck, back, and tail. Any wings, if present, are also armoured rather than scaled. But I have never seen a dragon with keels on them." He indicated a mild ridge down the scale's length. "This is no dragon."

Steed opened his hands, "What is it then?"

"Snake," said the Elfking. "And that letter out of Rivendell did explain that the toxin that was pulled from the murdered men was viperous."

Lusis shook her head, "My Lord, Icar and I were over it. There were no signs of anything but the Fire Salamander and the shade at that site. No snakes. No snake bites."

"None," agreed the King, "but the river was sick with venom. Their water barrels had been tainted with poison. When the barrels went into the river, many were quickly crushed on the rocks, broken open, or lost in the inundation. The men were doomed from the outset, dying of slow poison as they sailed."

"You… that letter you got from Rivendell," Lusis' eyes widened. "I recall you asked them to identify some of the venom. But… I don't believe there was any answer."

"There was," the Elfking said, "behind the seal of Rivendell, the word _serpents_. In elvish, such a word also means dragons, and certain among them were full of poison. But as this is no dragon, it must be a true serpent. A snake."

"You might have said."

"The men of Council were about." The King exhaled. "Such exhausting beings. But they have their role in this as well, it was their barges that were so hastily redesigned as weapons, their water tainted, the cargo a mix of oil and poison, set as fire-bombs against the Kingdom of Mirkwood. The question is why?"

But Lusis shook her head, "I would think the question is How do we find the one responsible?"

The Elfking stopped circling the scale when he stood with his shoulder facing her chest, and his head turned to take her in, his silvery blond hair lifting in the breeze around him, nut-scented, and full of light. "I know how. Tell me, do you know why?"

"I _don't_," she confessed to him, and wholly resisted the temptation to reach up and smooth his drifting hair with her hands, though she knew he saw her looking at it. His hair was the softest thing.

"Look at me." His voice was nearly a whisper, "Are you telling me the truth?"

Lusis' attention bounced from threads of glowing hair up to his blue-silver eyes. "I would not lie to you. _Fires_ – _you know_ I tell you the truth even when you _don't like_ it."

Beyond them, she missed her Ranger band's curious exchanged looks.

She was too panicked by the thought he was doubting her of a sudden.

"You have done. You have in the past, and you have recently." his head angled a little right and his brows bounced upward. "Loudly." He stepped around her and wandered out of the stand of shivering Aspen. His long legs and coat sent up a cloud of pussy-willow froth in air. "You need to be strong now, Lusis Buckmaster. I will have need of you by nightfall, and you must rest and be ready."

"Why? What's happening?" she followed him. "Will I be telling you? Trying to tell you-"

His long back stopped.

At some distance, Legolas waited in the wildflower field, his long hair billowing. He looked up from the sweet grass his fingertips stroked and peeked into his father's eyes.

"He's your _child_," Lusis whispered. Maybe it was hope driving her. But this elf, Legolas, was just so beautiful and shy standing there waiting for some time with his father. It made her remember her own shyness as this strange little girl dropped off among the Buckmasters.

The Elvenking continued through verdant tall grass under the sky and sun. When Legolas fell in beside him, silently, the tension in the Elfking's long back drained and he detoured toward the long wood docks. Lusis stopped by the horseshoe building around the tree and watched them. Stepping over old deadfall, the Elfking extended his pale hand toward his son. Legolas took the offered support, even though he had no need of it – no physical need of it – and stepped over to follow.

"How do you not love your son?" Steed reached her and asked sadly.

To this, Lusis nodded, "You don't." She watched Eithahawn come to the stairs of the dock and step aside for his King. The princes closed behind Thranduil and followed.

She headed off in their direction, but didn't encounter them again before she reached Kasia's house. He nodded at her as she passed him by. She went up to the room that had been designated for her and _finally_ slept on the bed there.

Eithahawn was with him, and they could have no better guard than Legolas – the son of legend.

And that was enough evidence that she could finally get off to sleep.

The river was sick with venom.

Their barges were redesigned as weapons, fire-bombs against the Kingdom of Mirkwood.

Why?

She looked at the ceiling and thought about the King's question.

Do you know why?

Lusis had been awake in her room since sunset. Now she got up, and went to the washstand with its bowl and full pitcher. She poured out water and washed her face, hands and arms. Should she know why? Whether that was true or not, she had to be ready. She brushed her hair back into a braid. She lay on the floor and stretched her body, many times more flexible than her counterparts because she lengthened her muscles and tendons every night.

Then she put on her elf-sword, fighting knives she'd been given by Ewon, and she walked out into the hall to look down at the dimming light in the yard. Forces were collected around Rangers of the North. It put a smile on her face.

Her steps were light on the stairs. She'd eaten, met up with her troop, and they'd gone out in the courtyard with the curious elves, watching the forces training begin. Lusis spent close to a half an hour sparring with the forces men. They could fight, but their experience was patchy, and they tended to be slow. Repetition of proper forms and speeding up would be critical.

The elves seemed to like the sparring.

Afterward, Ewon gave Lusis a few rounds, which was the single most pressing fight that she'd had in her life to date, and she badly lost. Bloodlessly. The old elf wasn't even trying hard, but, in spite of that, he was impressed, most of all, because she learned very fast, and did better in each successive practice.

"You are good," he told her. "You are meant to hold elf-steel, friend-Lusis."

She put her hands on her knees and panted, "Well, thanks. And so are you, friend-Ewon."

The soft bubbling of elven laughter sounded around her. And Ewon smiled. He went and brought her water so that she could recover more quickly.

Merilin's section went out as the third section came in. Legolas appeared in the yard, standing like a slender green shadow beside the door.

The Elfking had entered from the main building, and was walking with the massive elk just behind him. The forces scattered before him. He raised a hand and tipped his fingers toward himself. Lusis knew that was meant for her. She fastened one hand on Redd's gloved wrist, and the other on Icar's thick wool cloak.

"We're with you," Redd patted her hand.

She released them and crossed to the Elfking. He was ineffable in the growing blue glow from overhead. Moonlight tangled in his long and pale eyelashes as he looked down at them. His gaze leapt to Aric and Icar, then to Steed. "Tonight will be… eventful."

The Rangers pulled out blades, all softly white with King's light.

The Elfking was content. "Follow me."

They went out of town, and Lusis knew, almost with her bones, they were on their way to Erebor. The mountain loomed larger and larger in their view. They stopped in a wide field in the foothills. Its grassy face was cut low by herders, and by men collecting hay, it gave the field an odd stubbly look. It was rare for Lusis to see entire fields of grass cut this low, even with grazing.

Midway through the field the King let the elk go. The massive deer had no graze here, and bounced away to the trees so quickly that he seemed like something she'd imagined.

After a moment during which they all stared at the star-studded sky above them, and Lusis felt close, once again, to her old friends, the King turned to her and said, "Lusis, it is time."

Her fingers curled around the necklace. She didn't know what that meant, but she could easily intuit that she would be strangled tonight by that shadowy noose. Strangled, perhaps, to the point of death, and so she stepped forward and put a hand on the fire she could see beneath the King's steel breastplate. "I know you are my King." She straightened. "If this goes wrong, I want you to understand that it is by my will that you do it. I want to be free."

No one moved.

The Elfking surprised her. He suddenly covered her small, tanned hand, scarred at the knuckles, with both of his immaculate own. She felt a pressure of his gaze on her, and openly looked up at his timeworn silver eyes. She willed that he know her to be strong, proud, ready, and that he never doubt that she cared for the elf, this creation of silver and sunlight before her. Her fingers squeezed down on his steel. The fire she could see leapt in him. She smiled at it, imagined its bright yellow light reflected in her dark brown eyes.

"Lusis Buckmaster, tell me what befell you, until you can tell no more."

She sucked a deep breath.

"Come on, Lusis." Aric shifted weight and took out his sword. Me muttered, "We'll do right by you."

"I walked out of camp, and I went into the foothills. Long ago… I had been found there," her eyes darted to her Rangers who had no idea about this. "Found there with the other children, lying in stone depressions on the ground so old they had lost all meaning. In a way, I felt at home. I went that way because I knew it was close by, and because the stars," she had to stop to cough, "were like a fire, and they," she coughed again, "they were my first friends. But I found a dark pillar there, like a shadow with nothing to cast it. And, as soon as it sensed me," she reached up and pulled on the silver chain.

Aric urged, "Come on, Lusis. We are here."

Beside his brother, Icar noted, "If you could save us when you were but a girl, you can do this."

She pulled a breath in through her clenched teeth. "I took out my sword to fight. The pillar extinguished itself, like a fiery explosion, blowing itself out, but it had blasted its force outward, over the top of the foothill, and I was struck with a wave of," she stopped and started sucking for air. Spots danced in front of her face. She crashed to one knee. "A wave of despair. Just darkness. I breathed it in, and soaked it in my hair and skin. I blinked it out of my tears – until crying didn't mean anything. It was _everywhere_," her shoulder crashed to the ground. She had no idea how she'd gotten there. It seemed between heartbeats. But Lusis pulled herself back up to her knees, heaving.

Tears ran down her face. She pulled on the silver chain with a growl. The faces around her blurred and smeared. The Elfking above her seemed cut out of the darkness, a glass full of firelight.

Redd barked at her, "Fight, lass! Tell us all! Free yourself!"

Steed's bowstring made a report in air. "They move in the dark!"

Now Aric turned in place, and brought his sword down. Sooty debris blasted into air, amid the sudden flare of King's Light. "Look sharp, Redd!"

The Rangers moved quickly to encircle her. Lusis wasn't going to let them go through all this for nothing. Lungs burning with pain and face wet, she found the thread of her story again. Her shallow breath was unsteady, so little air was getting in. Her body began to ache with want, but she wheezed. "Then I drowned. The flood of it smothered everything. And it went black and… I was… beyond pain. And… I was like a silver branch in the sea…. I floated… into light … to hands-" At last, she began to asphyxiate, not the coughing and shortness of air of before: the sudden shutting off of her throat. Nothing made its way in or out of the neck that she clawed. She couldn't properly feel pain.

Layered darkness drew close over her, like being wrapped in blanket on blanket at night.

Her eyes soon began to forget seeing, so while she still could, she looked to the spinning cylinder of flame that was all there was of the Elfking – so vivid and alive. She felt herself dropping uselessly away.

The whirling fire crashed down on her. The night air went white.

Air sucked into the vacuum of her lungs so hard and so quickly that she felt her ribs might crack. Lusis' first few breaths were great gasps. A cry ground out through her abused throat.

Steel crashed overhead. There was a white blaze of light. Soot and stone struck the side of her head and threw her to one side. Aric shouted, "Redd, she's screaming!"

"Screaming is better than dying." Redd bellowed, "Better than what she was doing!"

"Lusis Buckmaster!" that roar was the voice of the King, its force backed by a furnace blast. "You are freed!"

She rolled onto her back in the short grass, her ears ringing. All around her, everything was clear. She could see Rangers fighting the shades. The King's serpent-tongue of silver sword arced in air, releasing its devastation in a steady blaze of light. But she simply lay in the grass, supine, and listened to herself breathe. The blinking of her eyes seemed slackened. Between flashes, she looked up at the stars with such love for them, as if they might be the faces of those she held, in all the world, closest to her heart.

"Where are they?" She asked.

"Abated."

The Elfking's body was one suffuse sun above her. He bent down and put his hand under her shoulder blades. She could hear his voice, but more than that, she could hear the soft low purr of elvish words inside her head as he pulled her slowly from the ground. "I am sorry, _tinu-sell_, this is no place for waking dreams."

It was like surfacing from water. She could hear again, see – all of it with normal human sensation, as soon as she sat up.

She felt her throat. The silver and pearl chain of the Ring-bearer was broken there, and she suffered a pang of great regret. As soon as she touched it, "I think I broke it." Her voice sounded hoarse and breathy with throttling.

"The one who gave me that would have prioritized your life above the state of a chain," the Elfking turned her face around in his long fingers. "Are you steady enough to endure?"

Lusis wasn't sure, so she got to her feet. It was a woozy feeling, but, unfettered too. Solid.

Redd impacted her for a hug, which was quickly followed by Icar and Aric. Only Steed, like the King, kept watching the darkness. It wasn't a matter of being less than glad she was alive, but a matter of keeping her so.

"Shades attacked us," Icar told her. "We need to get out of here."

"What did he do?" Lusis found her sword and took it out. "Why can I breathe?"

Redd shook his head, "He turned and cut air. I thought he was about to take off your head, but the sword passed your throat with just the best intentions between its tip and your flesh. Then you gasped and fell over, but you were breathing again."

"Help her," Steed said calmly. "Get her moving."

They started down the foothill with the Elfking before them. His hair was brilliant as a candle-flame in the strong moonlight. Lusis found her strength again, and soon, she could run. The thing that had held her breath in check was _gone_.

A wide field and bend in the swollen river stood at the base of the foothill. There, the Elfking stopped and faced the mountain across the low swells of green trees. The Rangers stopped some feet behind him, confused at his inaction.

"Will I have to come in and get you then?" he murmured at Erebor. "Perhaps you want it so. I am… weaker in the mountain. I am surrounded by my sins there. But, then, I will not be _alone_."

The wind rose wildly, threw his golden hair, and died away to stillness. Nothing else.

The Elfking raised the tip of his sword and pointed it at the mountain, "I am not so weak that I failed to _take her_ from you."

The trees above them began to rattle.

The King's head rose. "Come to me."

At first, it was distant under the blue moon, and they saw only some small motions, but it became violent, and the cracks of limbs breaking began to sound like massive bones snapping.

"What is that?"

"Retaliation," said the Elfking. "Lusis Buckmaster, it is time for you to go out into the world and far from here. The mountain festers like a sore. It is infected with the very darkness that sought to wring the life out of you. Leave this place."

She got into position on his right. "That I will not do."

Bright scales glinted above the trees. A towering head, so large it was the size of a four-man boat, climbed out of the darkness and into the moonlight.

"_What the fires_ is that thing?" Steed asked quietly. He took aim and shot an arrow at its eye, which bounced away, harmlessly.

"A great snake. They have scales on their eyes. Clear ones. You must know the how of taking them out." the Elfking said. The elf sections, one after another, dropped down beside him. Now the foothills had nearly one hundred and twenty Mirkwood warriors in line against the coming of the snake.

The archers in the woods stepped out to the fore, drew back arrows, and sent them soaring into the woods. A long hiss sounded. A second head appeared above the tree-line, but this one was writhing with dozens of arrows through its tongue and the roof of its mouth.

Lusis looked at her blade. It was useless here and she put it away. "Redd," she clutched two of his elf-crafted throwing axes and he nodded.

"Redd Ayesir," the Elfking's sword made an arch in air. "Take her from this place."

"No!" was all that Lusis had time to say. She was flying backward on the way down the hillside with little energy left to resist. She was still recovering, and had no desire to do harm to Redd, who carried her over his shoulder. She remained upright, staring at the snakes as they broke from the trees and lashed at the elves so fast that it was like falling lightning. Her next protest was a prolonged howl.

They crashed through trees and found the young elf, Telfeth, that Lusis had once saved now nervously awaiting them with horses. "Fly from here," she said and pushed the reins at them. "Ride from here and to your freedom, Lusis-nith!" she handed the reins of Lusis' horse to Redd.

They left her standing at the foothill. Lusis glanced back and saw the young elf hurry up into the tree line. A long, strident hiss sounded, the undergrowth shifted and crackled, and she glanced back to see the shrubs give way to a sluice, a sudden river of blood that began to follow them down the slope.

"Go!" Steed shouted, "Just go, all of you! The blood is making the horses mad with fear!"

They reached and charged down the river, four across, galloping for Lake Township. She could see trees falling in the foothills, hear cries in the wind all the way from there.

Kasia was on the docks with a growing crowd of people, "What is it?" he shouted as they arrived at the far side of the river. He pointed up at the mountain, and a spray of blood that flew up like a geyser. He'd sent a river-crossing raft over for them. It took all their horses, easily. He shouted into the darkness, "What is that? Where are they? There's not an elf in the place."

Lusis' blood froze, "Where is Eithahawn?"

"Not here." Kasia called out to her. "There is no elf _here_."

It was like being hit in the belly. "Oh _Fires_. He's not a _warrior_."

"Answer me!" Kasia bellowed. "What's happening?"

"Snakes!" Lusis shouted back. "Massive ones. Snakes as big as trees! As big as towns!"

Kasia wasn't the only one to fall silent in horror.

She tried to snap him from his shock with a shout, "Evacuate to the Halls! Find Eithahawn!"

The boat jumped. The horses spooked with it. Lusis got off to calm her shying horse, and noticed that the water eddied beside them. "Steed, see to these horses!"

He climbed down, as did the rest of her troop, and gathered the horses' heads to him.

"Pull us in!" Redd called out to Kasia's men on the shore.

"You must be hung up on something!" one of the longshoremen's gruff voices called back to him, "We're hooking up another draft horse. He'll get you over it."

"Those Rangers we hired," Kasia called out through his cupped hands, "they've run out on us too. I can't find a man of them."

Redd called back, "Or they may be on patrol, or interested in the battle snapping off trees in the foothills of Erebor! Maybe they expect that if that force isn't stopped, it will be too late for Lake Township?"

This being Redd, the conversation wended on. Lusis watched the eddy-pool beside the raft. It had a pale smudge inside of it, rippling. She thought she might be imagining it into being. But it got brighter. It rose suddenly, to become a long mane of golden hair, trailing out behind like orange-golden silk dropped in fresh water. And it rolled slowly over, along a seam of white to a pale face. A woman's face that floated just below the water in a flowering of golden hair.

Lusis shot upright, "_King's-Fires_, Redd! Look here."

The woman rose up out of the water, slowly, her long wet blonde hair falling in rings as she did so. Her pale hands swept it back over pointed ear-tips. She wore a long, shimmering, green shift, simple, but threaded through with silver so that it was patterned like stars, and she stood on the water with her hair full of crystals and light.

No one spoke. The shore was silent with Kasia staring in open disbelief.

Redd stayed his hand. "It's… it's an elf Lady from… the lake."

She was wildly beautiful. She was as fair as a water lily, with bright golden hair, with large blue eyes, the violet of bluebells at center going to palest blue. She smiled at them, softly, and her head tipped to one side.

"What – and who are you?" Lusis managed the question, for the feeling of magnetism was nearly overpowering when she looked at this lovely person.

"I am Ithileth," her voice was like soft music. She opened her slender, pale arms and said, "A thing forgotten. A friend."

Lusis drifted over to the edge of the raft. "Why are you here, Lady Ithileth?"

The elf-woman glided closer. Her hair was drying into large, full rings around her long, slender body. The sparks in her hair came from a diadem that dripped white stones all the way down to the small of her long back. She stepped out of the water with one small bare foot on the wood of the raft.

One of the horses screamed and plunged over the side. It started swimming for shore.

"I am up from the deep," the woman blinked slowly. "They are afraid of me, of the smell of the water."

The deep. Lusis glanced over her.

The raft began to cross the river smoothly. The horse that had spooked was already on the shore and being led clear of the dockyards. The rest rushed off as they arrived.

Kasia stood back from the golden elf woman. "My Lady…. Are you with the Elfking's sections?"

Her skin looked covered in tiny beads of dew. She glimmered when she stepped to the docks and glided to shore. "I have come a long way for your safekeeping, Lusis Buckmaster, as is the will of the Elfking. You must come away from the dark slopes of Erebor, and cold teeth of the Northern Waste, to safety. To me. We shall be close, flower of stars. We have a King in common, _ninimiel_."

She smiled so gently, so sweetly that Lusis felt her bones might melt. But the battle on the mountain had spread down into the waters. Shades shot along the far shore, cut down by the arrival of further sections of elves from the Halls.

Ithileth reached her pale hands to Lusis. "You will be free of this place. Such wonders will I lay out before you that you will be Ages fixing them in your mind."

But Lusis was more tightly focused on protecting the elf-woman from the shades she could see darting across the water. "I don't have Ages, Lady-elf. I'm human, and I don't want to live under the sea, or wherever else your Kingdom may be." She launched at the first shade to arrive on the docks.

Kasia howled at the misshapen sight of it, with its stolen human eyes. Lusis leapt across the docks and turned it into a pile of ashes. Steed's arrow reduced another into a splatter of gelatinous eyeball amid a cloud of smoke.

"King's-Light," the woman's melody said, "in elf steel? I had not known it could…. It is like making mithril into ithildin, so that the silver glows when the right words are spoken. But _not the same_. Did he do this?"

"Yes, he did," Lusis spat out ash. And it was like protecting an entire land of elves, Lusis thought to herself, with the purest of gemstones. _A new idea_.

"How… clever," Ithileth decided.

This was not the place for ruminating. "Get the Lady off the docks!" Lusis bellowed at Kasia.

"No, come with me, _ninimiel_!" She reached for Lusis' hand, but looked to the increasing number of elves darting along the shoreline, destroying the shades.

A green-clad elf darted halfway across the water and stood staring at the docks. He spun his fighting knives home to sheaths. As he stood, the perfusion of lilies under the dock reached out to him and he began to make his way to them.

"Now," said Ithileth. "Come – I shouldn't be alone."

Maybe she was unfamiliar with men? Lusis had met Northern Ranger troops like that. They were so steadily in among their own deadly sisters that they didn't trust or abide men at first. She stopped shouting for the longshoremen to clear the docks and barges, and glanced at the elf-woman. "Lady, follow me close. You need to be elsewhere – somewhere safe." She caught the woman's cold, pale hand and ran with her, passing off the docks, and going toward the yard.

She wanted to put the elf Lady with Avonne. The little girl and young women staff were in a cellar room, under Kasia's keep. It had been fitted with a lock that worked from inside.

"Stay close."

Something moved in the space between buildings and she saw the wet glint of an eye at nearly the last possible moment. Lusis slid low and slashed through the groin of a shade. It blew out in air, not a spec of its filth marring the elf-Lady as she halted in the alleyway.

The Rangers rounded the house and pounded into the yard, fighting, their sanctified steel flashing with King's Light as they fought.

Lusis hadn't known there were so many shades. The evil in Erebor had been picking away at the increase in human population for some time, and there had been no way of knowing. There was no census. She saw the young Ranger fall, gasping under a shade, ran into the yard and slashed through the shade's forehead to free him.

"_Doom's Fires_, there are a lot of them!" Redd barked. "Lusis, take the Lady away. Fly for the Halls and pay mind to the Markers – the Kingdom must be told!"

Steed rushed by her, and then Aric.

"Take her," Icar shouted. "Take care! Go!"

Lusis caught the elf-woman's slim hands and turned them both. She raced through the last few streets of houses, slashing any shade to come close, and then ran into the open field of wildflowers beyond the docks. Nothing came behind her. But then, it had taken several minutes to cut down the shades she'd encountered on the way, and during this time, she learned their touch was sticky and cloying, hateful, and it burned with cold.

She pulled the pair of them behind the cover of an oak tree and checked herself for injuries. She put her sword away and ran her hands over the woman's arms. Damp. Not bloody. "Are you well, Lady Ithileth?"

She gave a slow, graceful nod, "Do we go to the Halls of the Elvenking?"

"It is too dangerous for you here," Lusis told the woman. She nodded and panted, "It is bad timing. Some ill has come from Erebor-"

The Lady elf extended a hand and touched the silver and pearl chain now broken and looped about Lusis' neck. "He is clever, the Elfking, more clever than one might expect an elf to be. They can be impractical in their righteousness, perfectionistic and frozen in time. This one, though…."

"He's stayed in contact with Men, and the miracle of Men is that they change rapidly, they also change the world around them. So their genius is added to that crucible of fire inside of him." Lusis took off her cloak and threw it around the girl's shoulders. She was still wet from her swim to the raft. She curled her fingers around the elf Lady's shoulder, "Yes, a good heart will be safe in his Halls."

Lusis glanced at a darting motion beside them and came around with her sword out. It was easily knocked aside, and Legolas stood in the wagging sweet grass. He stared at the Lady elf, "He said… you were dead. He said…." His voice died away. "Where have you been?"

"Ah, _ge melin_, Legolas!" The Lady elf gasped. "Of all the agents of the Elfking… I am best."

The sunny blond elf made a small inarticulate sound and Lusis had to drop her sword and catch his shoulder to keep him from crumpling to the grass. "What's happening to you!? Legolas?" The more out of control a situation the more likely it was she would have to take unpleasant action about it. More than one Ranger had killed because of chaos. She looked at the elf-lady, uncertainly.

Legolas sank to the sweet grass with his head bowed, and his breath came out like drops of fire, "I will not… forgive him… for this."

The golden woman sank down with her arms around him.

A long shriek near the dockyards pulled Lusis out from behind the oak tree. She'd snatched up her sword and gone to look. She could see that the fighting had reached the dockyards in earnest now. Snakes were in the water. Massive long snakes. Her eyes followed the sudden spark of flaming arrows flying aloft. A tremendous hiss grated through air. The head of a large black snake rose over the buildings, and elves of all sections skittered across the rooftops as quickly as thought.

The long neck jolted thrice, struck by tremendous sword blows, and the serpent hissed. It coiled further down the mouth of the river toward the silver beech tree and snapped at the darting figures of Ewon and Amathon, the latter of which put a burning arrow into its tongue. It moved blisteringly fast, but so did the bull elk that cleared the dock and shot under the snake's strike at the Elite guard. And as it ran, the Elfking's white blade reached up and slashed a line of red through about the only vulnerable spot the massive snake seemed to have. He cut away its jaw. Gouts of blood shot out of the snake and it seemed like a waterline losing pressure. It sagged down to the water's edge as Ewon stabbed it, expertly, through its eye.

Shades seemed to course straight out of its bloody mouth. The Elites flew back into action.

If there were more where that snake had come from, Lusis didn't know if she could protect the Lady from them. Or the Prince. "Legolas, _we have to go_."

But when she looked, he was utterly motionless in the grass, with the Lady elf now rising to stand above him. She reached her white arms. "Come with me, girl. Come with me…." The words blurred into a soft chant Lusis could hear in her bones.

Her sword came up as a matter of habit, but stayed.

To Lusis' ears, her own voice sounded slightly stretched. "What did you do to him?"

She swung at the elf woman, but it seemed so _slow_. The woman easily ducked the blow, and scooped up one of the Prince's fighting knives. But Lusis also saw the elf's strike coming – oddly enough. She turned the attack and backed up into the field. She took a small turn left to put her closer to the Prince. "Who did he think you were? Who _are_ you?"

The woman said lightly. "Why do you fight me, Lusis Buckmaster?"

Lusis swung her sword in a quick arc that turned into a slash, and the elf Lady backed away from injury at the last moment. "Because I don't think you're Ithileth. Whoever that is." She kept up her fight until she had nearly turned around the tree, so that her boot came down just under Legolas' leg.

Ithileth said to her, "Think of the _King_. Think of what he said to you. To leave Erebor. You are meant to come with me…." This sounded inside her skull, and blurred her vision. Ithileth started over like a woman in a round, "Think of the _King_-"

The one that the Prince would never forgive?

Her eyes widened, "_Stars_." If Redd had been here, or had been thinking of his Books on hearing it, he might have recognized the name of Thranduil's Queen. Lusis nudged Legolas. Then kicked him. He wasn't cooling, but he didn't stir. Lusis felt her head clearing around the inner roar of outrage, and she felt her lips snarl, "Oh, Lady, there is _no way_ that woman would've done this to her son. Or watched what I just did."

Ithileth's voice drew out in a hiss that grew increasingly sibilant and deep. "I said… _come with me_!" And a black gout of fire roared up inside of her, so dark and powerful that it tore the oak tree off its roots and cut it into bits. Lusis hit the ground, rolling with Legolas in her arms.

Well, he was awake now.

But blurry.

"Mother," he coughed and shook debris out of his bright hair. "We need to go back for-"

"No, we don't need-" Lusis didn't get to say more. She was lifted off her feet and thrown downhill in the field, by the slender seeming of an elf-woman. It drove the air out of her. She ended up on her back in the grass, gasping. She needed to stay awake, and a few seconds to think.

"You will come, if I have to cut your legs off and carry you." She raised Lusis' sword and smiled coldly, "Don't worry, you filthy mouse, you will survive it."

"Give me that!" Lusis' teeth bared. She struggled awake and rolled onto her shoulders, her hands pushed the ground mightily. She kicked the sword out of the woman's hand. She turned over onto her feet and snapped the sword from the ground. "You'll cut yourself, you fake-Silvan lunatic. Of course, who cares?!" She lunged in slashed at the woman, but the elf seemed made of water.

Lusis couldn't land a winning blow. And the woman's hands darted, too fast, and too hard. She could turn a blade without a single cut, and hitting her arms sounded like striking armour plate. The throwing axes sailed out into air, like they'd hit a shield, but they hadn't. They'd struck the elf-Lady on her shoulder and her head. She seemed impervious. It was _bizarre_.

The woman stepped in close, her two-tone eyes twinkling with waywardness in that borrowed face, and she reached for Lusis' throat.

The white blade that passed through the elf-woman's chest was unmistakably the Elfking's. It drove in so fast and hard that it nearly cut Lusis, but she cried out and only just managed to block it with the flat of her sword.

It was only when the Lady-elf began to fall over backward that the Elfking realized what he had done. He saw, first, that he had killed another elf – which appalled him. And then, in a great rush of cold, he saw the face of his Queen.

He let go of the hilt of his sword and backed away as she fell. He grew frighteningly pale.

Lusis got to her feet, gasping. She extended a hand. "No. It's not her. Listen to me!"

But he was beyond all help. His expression shifted. Disbelief. Misery.

Legolas rushed by Lusis with a broken shout, "What have you done?"

His voice drove splinters of grief into Lusis' throat. But she had to get to the King.

"Wait, wait. Don't," Lusis said to the Elfking. She had to get to him. He was on the very edge of flight.

He struggled for air, swaying where he stood. Horrorstruck.

On one side, her fingertips brushed his bloody hand. On the other, she hooked her fingers into the steel of his breastplate. "It's not her. It's not your wife." There was an utter lack of comprehension on his shocked face, and she feared even elvish couldn't reach him now. "Thranduil, listen!"

The woman behind her began to speak, painfully, her high voice wet with burbling blood, "You are… like a sword blade… folded for an eternity in fire… thrust into Aule's forge… and then-" she coughed bubbles of red froth.

"Peace, mother," Legolas told her, unsteadily. "Peace."

"And then… plunged in the cold ocean… again and again, my Lord of the Mirkwood. You are… _fragile_!" This last word was a long, hissing shout. The elf woman moved with incredible speed and power for one so injured.

Lusis turned. The Elfking was already by her. He'd torn Lusis' elf-steel sword from its sheath and it arched through air in a great stab. Legolas glided aside, out from the blow that Ithileth had aimed at his chest, without seeing it. He was only aware of his father, and pulled out his fighting knives with a broken cry. Lusis found herself leaping for the last weapon not accounted for. The sword of the Elfking, which she stepped up onto the rising body of the elf-woman to grasp. She took the blade itself, along its back and pulled hard, and by way of that blocked Legolas as he tried to stop his father's attack.

The Elfking put his weight behind his next blow. The sword slammed into the woman's open mouth, and came out the back of her head to pin her, nearly beheaded, to the field. And her too-sharp hands, which had laid waste to the King's breastplate – scored it with deep gouges, and nearly torn it free of his body in a quest for his heart – fell limp.

The King's hand darted to the hilt of his sword and he pulled it free from the woman's chest. Lusis got her fingers clear of it just in time to save them all.

Legolas stood, panting, beyond himself, staring at his father. Lusis was afraid of that look, and dragged the King back from the body that was twitching and shuddering on its knees, bent backward in the field. She pulled him clear of his son and scanned the Elfking. His eyes were like glass. His face and hair were now doused in elven blood.

His voice was ragged, like a broken sob. "Let her cut out my light. _But not you_. No." He looked at his son.

The woman on the ground gave a last shiver.

And she changed. She split out of her silvery skin.

Her body thickened. Her new skin was a mottled gold and black. And her hair vanished into the plate-like scales of a snake. The pupils in her wide open, now orange, eyes grew into slits. She had fangs. Her arms and hands were plated, and on her fingertips were long, golden blades. Her lower body extended and melted to one, great, long, scale body – a viper's body.

She was half-snake, and the other half was the body of a woman. Lusis gasped.

She was _huge_ to have hidden as that slender elf. Her great long tail spread out over the field. And those ridged black scales. She'd seen their like before.

But the King didn't notice any of this, because he didn't look away from his son, Legolas, who took in every tiny alteration in detail. He stepped forward with his fighting knives in his fists. Brought up the knife on the right, and struck off the snake-woman's head with one blow.

Then he walked to his father, very close to his father, and stood before him. His smooth voice, so melodic, was now very soft. "It's all right. It's all right. _Adar_. Father. Hear me." He had to say this quite a few times before his father seemed to start to breathe again.

Thranduil's hand was unsteady. It found his son's chest, above his heart, felt the beat there, and then slid up into the younger elf's hair. He pulled the boy onto his ruined steel plate, close to him.

Lusis backed away, her eyes on the two of them together.

"Not so far." Dorondir told her from just a few feet behind her.

She spun to take him in, and he offered her a fighting knife of his to use.

"Do not retreat so far. There are snakes and shades about yet. Work to be done." He stepped up beside her.

Lusis spoke between chattering teeth – shocked by what she had witnessed, and straining at the edge of restraint due to the strong emotions of these elves she held so dear. "_Where_ is _Eithahawn_?"

He exhaled unsteadily as he scanned the scene, "You do love your royals."

She pulled him aside and said, "Tell me where. I need to make him safe. Now."

Dorondir leaned over her shoulder and said, "He is safe. I've spend an Age training him up to be that way. He will never be a warrior, Lusis, but he will also never be a victim."

Now she ground her teeth. "So is that… in the kitchen cellar? In the basement? Where?" Bloody elf spies and their inability to give a straight answer.

"He's with Jan Kasia in the business," Dorondir noted. "The fighting is further down Long Lake now. Heading back to Erebor. The snakes won't be happy with the reception there."

"Oh?"

"Eithahawn drafted a letter days ago and sent it to the Iron Hills." Dorondir's blue eyes lit with undisguised approval. "_Trouble. Trouble in the mountain_. Really, he has such ingenuity, that one." There was clear affection there. But then, the King had said to expect as much.

Lusis caught sight of Ewon and Nimpeth arriving. Amathon and several other Elites whose names she didn't know came onto the field, but kept their distance from the Prince and King.

She lifted the fighting knife Dorondir had given her and found the weight was ideal for her size. Lusis nodded at it. "I'll get this back to you."

"Where are you going?" he turned to ask her unsteady retreat. But she was growing stronger.

"Shade hunting." She said coldly.

Without a word, Ewon chose to join her.

The next day began early.

She woke up on the bench because the too-radiant-for-predawn Elfking was standing on the bedroom-side patiently saying, "Get out of my way. Ranger. Out of my way."

He was _magnificent_. Wearing a green so pale it was very nearly white. He wore leaf pauldrons, and matching white vambraces, no gloves, and no breastplate. Clipped at his throat was a green and white opal as large as an eyeball – and she was a very good judge of eyeball size these days. It sat in a nest of complex white gold branches that were not unlike a shining nest.

His hair was swept into flawless arrangement. He bent over her with those cherry-petal lips and said, "Get. Up."

In the hall golden Prince Legolas was looking very amusedly at his father. "So maidens sleep on wood benches outside your door, now? Ah. Is this a new thing, or has it been going on for a while?"

The King told his son, "You are not helping."

Legolas smothered a grin, "Is this… some endurance test you've set her to, father?"

"Impertinent," the Elfking shut his eyes and exhaled. He shook out his white-golden hair. "She has her own reasons for blocking my way," he looked down at her with a stern expression, "Every. Morning. Of late."

"Yes," she rubbed her eyes. "I'm exhausted."

"I suppose you could jump over her. I saw you with those snakes last night. You are limber." Legolas demonstrated with one hand laid flat and his running fingertips, and the Elfking on the other side of Lusis had to immediately bow his head to collect himself. And she had a good view of that. For one thing, he _did_ have dimples. For another, it was _a certainty_ that he loved his son.

She rolled off the bench and pushed it out of the way, conditions inside her head split between foggy and muddled. Her last memory of the night had been washing off the blood, ash, eyeballs, and river water in the stables. Then she'd wrapped in a long wool cloak and just barely gotten the bench in place before she'd collapsed on it. And the dreams. The wild dreams of stars, and flying over the land and water, and coming to another shore. They felt like visions. She was shamefaced as she bowed to the King and picked up her sword from the floor. It wasn't like her to be in such a state. She was still wearing the wool robe from the night before. But she'd breathed so deeply. Slept so well. She felt remade.

The tall elf paused in the hallway to accept the bows of Ewon, Amathon, and Nimpeth. As Amathon was pale with injury, the King reached his hand and cupped it over the back of Amathon's neck. He whispered in elvish, and King's-Light flowed across the elf's skin. Amathon bowed as much as he could, given the hurt, and the small family that included him seemed very grateful as he moved aside.

Lusis stared at Amathon in passing, at the low burn of light inside of him, as the King's-Light poured into it and fortified its brilliance. Nimpeth's long arm threaded around her husband. She was helping him back to his room.

Lusis was glad to see they had all survived the snakes. She hurried to her own room to dress and left the door open by habit.

By now she followed the King in an unthinking way. She trusted only Princes, Elites, and Rangers to secure him, and herself most of all. The King walked the hallway, receiving updates on the Lonely Mountain while she got herself in order and rejoined them.

Minutes later, they approached the main hall. She was distracted by the smell of a type of spiced apple the elves cooked and generally spooned out onto their most cake-like of breads, the one with a dice of raisins and cinnamon swirls. She peeked around the bright shoulders of the Elfking and down the stairs. It looked like elves served a mingling of Rangers, humans, forces, and their own kind. The good wine was flowing, even that early. The room was packed. She made out Kasia standing with several of the Council. Nema glared her pretty glare up in return.

Then Lusis' eyes flicked back to the Elfking's long white golden hair, many times whiter, and far less buttery in colour than the Prince's, beside him. Darker still was Eithahawn's – an orange-gold fire. But… she hadn't seen him. Not since riding out last night. Not since, she slipped a hand around her throat and inhaled deeply, then smiled. Not even the chain was there. She was _free_ again.

But she trusted no one would be this calm if Eithahawn was hurt.

The Elfking started on the stairs. Dressed in his palest green, with a cloak lined in gold, and for the first time in Lake Township, wearing his tall spring crown with its blossoms about to open to daylight – the same crown that Eithahawn had brought from the Halls. He was glorious, and, to make matters better still, his son, in pale gold and wearing a white-gold circlet embellished with quartz Rowan leaves, was just as blindingly superb.

The King came down the stairs in an unhurried way, Ewon before him, and two things happened. The Mirkwood elves in the room below looked up at the Prince and King, set aside everything they were doing, and bowed. They held their position, which was a high form of esteem. The humans in the room raised their glasses and gave a glass-rattling cheer – once, twice, and the third time they dissolved into applause. The Elfking stood frozen as his people rose to look at him, unaccustomed to human reactions. Legolas set a gentle hand on his shoulder, which made the King look to his unworried son. In turn, the Elfking spoke a calming word to Ewon. The Elite stood with a blade out, and an arm across the railing to bar access to the royals of Mirkwood.

Lusis thought she couldn't help laughing at their response. She could just imagine what was going through Ewon's head, having heard some of the debate she liked to call, _I think I told you to wear all the armour – all of it – my King_ as she'd been drifting in the morning. However, when the Elfking shot her a harassed look she found she could, in fact, help it, and she could, in fact, pull her face together and pin it down to the elven composure that dominated the crew on the stairs.

The Elfking exhaled and went to the first landing. It was everything Ewon could do not to swing his sword at the sudden thrusting of wine goblets in the King's direction. He managed.

The Elfking extended a hand to his son, and Legolas took it and pivoted around toward the railing. He looked downward, amused by the human hubbub. His father joined his long hands before him and silence finally began to fall in the room.

"This is not the last disruption we will face from the Lonely Mountain." He said, "That forsaken Kingdom is both a relic of past iniquities and a haven of broken reveries. Its riches flourish in the quiet darkness, and in the imaginations of men. Thus, it must remain one focus of our efforts. The creatures we slew-"

A great cry rang out among the humans and much applause. Many had seen the Elfking and his son fighting beside the sections. The power, speed, and skill of the King's blade was now a quantity known to men, and they wanted to make him aware they were impressed by it. But this meant little to an elf. Skill came with time and practice, and he was from the First Age. To the King, it was simply to be expected. Still, the Elfking held his calm – these were not elves. No. His people stood still and soundless. They waited with gracious hands folded for him to speak on.

"The great snakes, the shades, and the woman called Lammia – are artefacts of Mordor. You may expect more to come from that dark and inhospitable land, attracted to the wealth and solitude of the Lonely Mountain. You may also expect that no disorder will be allowed within the Kingdom."

The next cheer was deafening, and the elves, whose hearing was quite sharp, winced back from it. The Elfking's eyes narrowed and he furtively looked to Legolas to be sure the noise was not causing his son distress or discomfort. It didn't seem to be. The butter-golden elf wore a gentle smile.

It was important to watch Thranduil. She'd said so before. To watch him closely was to see that there was a great, secret love inside of him – something he wanted to keep hidden – that was one part love of the people and land that made up his Kingdom, and one part love for his child.

For his children. She corrected herself. _Where the fires was Eithahawn_? Her stomach was feeling the beating wings of butterflies over his wellbeing.

The King noted, "Make merry, but remember that parts of the Township suffered fire, there are carcasses to be separated, salvaged, or burned, and there is much we need to set to rights about the land and river," he amended, "_my_ river."

The human crowd laughed. Once, '_my river'_ had been everything they'd known of the Elfking.

The elves raised their glasses to him and their voices hit air like a rush of music, "_Melda-tar_."

She knew that one. _Beloved King_.

"My thanks," said the Elfking into the lull afterward. "My son and I must attend to business."

Humans stepped aside from the tall, broad-shouldered King as he passed through the room. They had never met the Prince before, and they were surprised by his warmth. Rumours of his greatness were already spreading through Lake Township – though he hadn't fought in Gol Dulgur, the battle they knew best, they knew he was a hero of the Ring War, and they'd seen him taking snakes apart the night before. They were curious about him. Lusis wished him luck with Madam Nema. Her red-lipped smile followed the pair of them through the gathering hall.

As to the Elfking, there was an air of veneration for the sword he carried, which, prior, many of the humans had believed to be, like his armour, ornamentation. Likewise, there were many wonderful glances at the branching crown he wore. The humans seemed fascinated with it, and how the blossoms had been gently opening through the King's address. They were small white stars now, against the pale wood and green leaves.

Icar fell in beside her, and Lusis wrapped an arm around him for a brief hug. When the King was afoot, she considered herself on-duty. She wondered if that was a necessity anymore. "Where are the others?"

"They've been in and out." Icar told her. "Redd was late at the river, removing snake scales. Maybe he's still asleep? The scales are to be set in a phalanx pattern and laid against several of the docks to help keep ice break-up from doing so much damage, or so Kasia said. The Kingdom's Seneschal said there is nothing inherently evil about them. They are to be cleaned with King's Light and used."

"Sounds tiring for the King," she worried. "We'll need to oversee." She looked in his direction, "Thank you. All of you. I wouldn't have gotten through that mess last night – that getting free from the noose – without you there."

"And without you," he smiled at her. "I'd be dead. You can consider us even, if you like."

"Then there's nothing binding you to me anymore," she said a little sadly.

"Yes there is." He told her, smiled, and said nothing more.

They went into the business across the yard where even more humans were packed. Just getting through the yard had not only been deafening – given the cheering – it had been nerve-wracking. Two sections had been called in to stand between the Prince, the King, and the press of people. It was madness. Even Kasia had been overwhelmed by it.

Four Elites controlled the door into the main business. Kasia led them that way.

The Prince and King were met with the cheering of grateful workers once they got inside. They stood on the balcony and rained flower petals down onto the procession.

This, at least, had the effect of making the Elfking glance up at them. He loved the touch of flower petals. Maybe they intuited as much. No one knew how they reminded him of the touch of his wife, the feel of her skin, and that they made him feel close to her again in some small away. But that was a personal thing, and not for anyone else's heart. All that mattered here was that today, especially, he really appreciated them. His lips curved. A dimple flickered for a moment as he looked into the rain of them, and he moved on to the offices.

It was quieter there. Argus had secured the area. He looked very pleased this morning, having seen giant snakes, rampaging shades, and good pay for all his men. "This way's the way, King."

Eithahawn sat like a lone rose on a bench at the end of a wood hall. He gazed at double-doors beside him, lost in thought. Perfectly unhurt.

"Oh, I'm going to skin him. Thank the _Stars_ he's okay." Lusis exhaled, and the King and Prince actually glanced at her.

Legolas showed a flash of teeth. Mischievous, like his mother, as he told her. "Well, his skin _is_ lovely. Have you felt it?"

Icar tried not to laugh at her and flatly failed. He had to cover his mouth with one hand and Lusis still whacked him in the back of the head.

Eithahawn's outfit was green today. His fire-bright ripples of hair shimmered against it as he rose and bowed to the Elvenking. His eyes passed over Lusis, and she heard the strangest thing in her head. Words. '_I cannot thank you enough. __With naught but skin to separate them, Ithileth could yet pull him closer. He was her possession. That might have been his destruction. But you protected him_.'

She blinked, shook her head, and stared at Eithahawn. He was already looking at the Elfking.

And the Elfking was staring at him. "I am happy to see you well, Eithahawn."

Legolas stepped up and actually embraced his brother. Eithahawn looked shaken by this, and the fact that the tall King slid a hand over his shoulder and glanced back at the two boys, quietly. The King's night had been a long one, and he had not shut his eyes to rest for fear of seeing his wife's dying face again. He hoped to replace that memory, or at least challenge it, with more memories like this one.

After a moment, Eithahawn regained his composure and told them, "He is within."

Then they all turned to look at Lusis.

"What?" She glanced over impassively happy elven faces and said, "Should I go?"

The Elfking's brows drew up. "I suppose… it will have to do." He extended a hand and took her fingers carefully in his own. "Come with me."

She glanced from their joined hands, frantically, to the door, and, though her arm extended, she didn't move when he stepped forward. The Elfking paused and gently released her.

He revised, "It is for you to choose. Will you come with me, Lusis Buckmaster?"

The door before them opened to the height and beauty of another golden elf, this one dressed in green and gold, and wearing two swords. She wondered if he was another Sinda. His voice was low and dry, "Thranduil."

"Glorfindel."

Oh. He of 'the phial of tears' and 'filigree'. He was _huge_. Beautifully elegant, with large, slanting, green eyes that were similar in colour to a green apple.

Glorfindel stepped aside and said, "Thranduil, Legolas, and Eithahawn with assorted Rangers and Elites, my Lord." He glanced back, "And the girl."

_Oh great_.

She stepped into the large wooden room and found a tall, severe-looking elf waiting. He was very handsome in his golden circlet, dark-haired and tall, in his ornately patterned green and gold silk, but looked intimidating and stern. Dorondir stood just inside the door, and brought Eithahawn to a seat directly.

The Elfking inclined his head. "Lord Elrond."

Lusis recognized the name of the letter-writer and Dorondir's Other Master.

The other elf mirrored this, "Lord Thranduil."

"_Ai_," Legolas said simply. He moved to the long, polished table and picked out a green apple. He glanced back at the door and Kasia standing anxiously there. As soon as Icar and Lusis were inside, he shut the door, himself without. He wasn't eager to know the business of such an intimidating group of elves. Dealing with the King was bad enough.

Lusis was interested to see that her troop sat at the table, all of them looking anxious.

"Welcome, welcome all, and let us begin," said Lord Elrond. His voice was resonant and beautiful in timbre. But it was weighty and solemn, like his great eyes. "You… slew seven great snakes and a Lammia? It didn't occur to you to write me back?"

Thranduil's chin rose. "Your healers confirmed what my healers proposed to me. Once that was beyond doubt, with all due respect, I didn't need you to help me kill some snakes, Lord Elrond."

Elrond held up both hands to make a point. "They are really rather large snakes."

Legolas hid a chuckle in biting an apple and gesturing at the Lord of Rivendell while looking at Lusis' anxious troop of Rangers. Large snakes. That was a fact.

The Elfking's head tipped to one side, "Regardless, I assure you, they are _completely dead_. We are hunting out the last of the shades – they will not last the week. Mirkwood had some injuries, no deaths, and the new territory-"

Elrond added, "Full of _Strangers_." He used it in the way elves did when they referred to the mortality of human beings. In that sense, humans would always be Strangers to elves.

Thranduil continued, "The new territory is safe under our care."

"The one thing that great snakes have over their dragon kindred is _fascination_." Elrond paced at his end of the table. There was ample room in here for it. The Elfking didn't move. "If you had been overwhelmed by the beguilement, what then? I had no idea what the situation was here. No one was ready to send support."

"Perhaps you mistake me for Elladan or Elrohir?" Thranduil told Elrond. He also glanced across at Legolas, and Eithahawn, who sat together in relaxed composure. Legolas munched his apple and looked harmlessly on, and beside him, Eithahawn made the Elfking's parallel between Elrond's twins, and himself and Legolas. He studied the glossy table at the jump of excitement inside of him. Whether the King had meant it in that glance or not… it was as close as he had come to claiming Eithahawn as his own among other elves. He was smiling when he glanced up, a little more brightly than decorum would mandate, and entirely missed Legolas' contented glance in his direction.

Lusis didn't miss it. Her chin rose. She didn't know Legolas very well at all, but already liked him. She felt on better footing in here just because he was so unceremonious. To him, it seemed a gathering of family and friends, and there was no more to it than that.

"A Lammia is a treacherous creature, Lord Thranduil. They are masters of illusion, bursting with beguilement, scheming and poisonous, and difficult to injure. Not many know how to kill one." Elrond exhaled. "While I'm not surprised you are among those who do, there was too much risk in this venture. If she'd taken your mind, this enterprise would have fallen into chaos."

"I had Eithahawn here for that," said Thranduil. "I hope we come to the end of these questions soon, Lord Elrond. It is late to find fault with my methods in this."

The great elf Lord's blue eyes narrowed, "There is a way… of doing these things. A way that keeps us all… notified."

"Yes."

Elrond of Rivendell compressed his temper, "If you know that, _why_ must you be difficult?"

"I have no answer for that," Thranduil said quite seriously. And nothing more.

At the end of the table, Legolas slipped and actually smiled. It made the troop of Rangers, particularly Redd, relax visibly. Now Redd looked eager.

The dark-haired elf shut his large eyes a moment and exhaled. When he opened them again, he also opened his eloquent hands, "I am glad to see you unharmed. All of you." His glance also took in Dorondir where he stood by Ewon at the doors. "I sent Legolas as soon as I could reach him."

"Well," the Elfking half-turned toward his son. His eyes narrowed. "It is reassuring to learn he can listen to the directions of _certain_ elves and actually _obey_." Legolas sank back in his chair, easing himself further from sight behind Eithahawn, who wore his most blameless expression and assiduously ignored this time-honored move of his little brother's.

Elrond's brows went up in curbed amusement. "Now, if only we could teach you the same."

The Elfking turned back toward Elrond, his long eyes averted, "You should give up on that impulse, Lord Elrond. It is doomed to failure."

Now Elrond very nearly smiled. "As challenging as you are, I am relieved to see you are well, Thranduil King of Mirkwood." He inclined his head.

The silvery Elfking matched the motion in time with Rivendell's esteemed Lord.

Elrond exhaled and much of the tension left the room. "Do you agree you should have told me the full extent of this?"

"Yes, I do."

"Ah. Reassuring." Lord Elrond's serious voice was enjoyable to the ear. "Then I expect the thought crossed your mind many times?"

"Many."

The stress building up in the dark-haired elf was nearly a visible thing. How anyone of the Elfking's magnitude could _know_ all these things should happen, and yet willfully fail to carry them through – clearly it wasn't something the Lord of Rivendell could cogitate. "It would have been to your advantage, and you are a man who _does not_ miss his advantages, Thranduil. Which means you saw that some greater advantage lay elsewhere for you."

There was no hesitation. "Not at all."

"Then please explain to me," Elrond leaned on the back of a wooden chair, and it gave a squeak of complaint under his strong fingers, "I do very much care to know."

"The advantage was not for me, or not directly," he nodded. "It has served me well, I do freely admit."

Elrond rounded the table and came to stand before the tall Sinda. They were very nearly of a height, and looked impressive together. The sunrise painted the pair of them in light, both imposing and powerful. And alike in their apparent serenity. Lord Elrond asked, "Why risk so much, my friend?"

For a moment the Elfking's silver eyes did nothing under the steady pins of blue. But then those long lids rolled shut and Elrond's chin rose.

"Lusis," the Elfking said.

She looked at his closed eyes, at his profile in the sunrise, more beautiful than anything under the Lonely Mountain, or anywhere else she'd seen. "Yes, my King?"

His blue-silver eyes found her. "What colour?"

For a moment she was lost. Utterly lost, and he stared at her, expectantly. She looked back, afraid to fail him… and the light in his chest rose from gold to white. She stared at it burning into his throat, shining out his eyes, and looked around the room. All the elves. They all had a fire, and so did her Rangers' chests, but the human candles flickered. The elven candles did not.

She looked down at her own chest and saw a point of light. A single golden star, so unlike anyone else's share of light. Lusis blinked at it, never having seen it before.

She looked to the Elfking again, and his head tipped toward Lord Elrond.

Lord Elrond's flame of light was a deep burnished colour, a ruddy gold at a steady burn.

"Red-gold. Steady." She told him. "No flickering. Unlike yours, which is white right now." That furnace was shining out of the nest of his throat. She scanned the room and found Eithahawn's gold flame, and Legolas' silvery.

Elrond stared at her a moment. She didn't blame him for the lack of comprehension. The Rangers of her troop were lost. Ewon made a small gasp behind her, and then it seemed to strike the elves all at once. Eithahawn rose to his feet, Legolas with him. The one called Glorfindel clapped a hand over the blue flame inside of him.

Dorondir came around into her line of vision, amazed, and she glanced back to see the yellow flame of Ewon staring at her, just as warm and friendly as the first day he'd given her tea.

Elrond did that elf-pivot that seemed all but motionless. His voice was quiet, almost as if he spoke to himself. "But… they are all old men. This… this is a _girl_." He gestured at her.

"Just when you allow yourself to imagine," the Elfking turned toward her, silhouetted by the rising sun, "that all quantities are known. That the world is wholly quantified, and the powers can make nothing new… along comes… a new idea."

"What is?" Lusis asked them.

The Elfking's brows went up in amusement. "And the Lammia knew. She put a rope of shadow onto this girl. The dark powers lost their god."

Elrond looked weak with revelation, and he peered up at Lusis. "Yes. I see. So they reasoned… why not make another?"

"What colour are you, Lusis?" the Elfking asked.

"Uh, yellow, I suppose." She glanced down at the star lodged at the base of her throat, and then up again to him. "Like the sun. Does this mean something to you?"

"Istari." Elrond's head cocked. "We must take you to Galadriel and Celeborn."

"If by 'we', you mean you, I'm sorry, Lord Elrond, but I'm not going anywhere," she looked to the Elfking. "My place is here. I serve the Elfking, and Mirkwood, and this new land full of Strangers." She looked into Thranduil's blue-silver eyes steadily.

Elrond glanced aside at Thranduil, wide-eyed, and he suddenly understood. Two Ages under constant assault. One son sent to battle. Adopted son yoked with the weight of a Kingdom. Wild risks taken to protect the Silvan of Mirkwood. No Ring of Power. What did you do?

Well _the impossible_, of course.

You found a _wizard_ and made her your own.

He inhaled deeply and asked, "Thranduil Oropherion, King of Mirkwood…" he gathered his patience, "do you agree to arrangements that would bring this one, Lusis Buckmaster, who can see the Light of us – the Secret Fire of us all – and who we both believe is a Yellow Istari, to Lothlorien to Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn?"

The Elfking's cheek dimpled up briefly. He didn't look away from Lusis either. "I cannot."

Lusis cocked her head at him, loving his smile in the sun.

"The decision is not mine," said the Elfking. "It is up to Lusis."

**End**. **Thank you for reading!**


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